


Release

by ZombieBabs



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depression, Disordered Eating Habits, F/M, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Prison, Romance, Slow Burn, Solitary Confinement, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: After six months in solitary confinement, Garcia Flynn is starting to crack. When Lucy Preston, recently rescued from Rittenhouses' clutches, offers him a way out, does he even want it?An alternate-universe-adjacent retelling of season two, focusing on the aftermath of Flynn and Lucy's six months of trauma, their recovery, and the love they find on the way.





	1. Chapter 1

The trial happens in a flash. The sentence: Life in prison. Zero chance of parole. 

Unsurprising. He’d waived his right to a lawyer. He’d plead guilty to all charges.

What did it matter? Lucy betrayed him. Took his one chance to get his wife and daughter back from him, seconds after handing him the means to take out the Rittenhouse agents who took their lives. He was never going to see his family again. Let him rot in prison for his crimes.

It’s what Lorena would have wanted. She tells him so, sitting beside him on his prison bunk, expression twisted with disgust.

She’s dead. This he knows. But he stares at her, unable to help himself, his heart constricted in his chest. He wants to reach out, to touch her, but he’s terrified she’ll disappear, that she’ll be lost to him again. Lost to him forever.

Lorena smiles, but it’s nowhere near the sweet smile she would gift him with when she was still alive. “You aren’t my husband. My husband would have died with us. He would have died _protecting_ us.”

He nods. His eyes burn, but he can’t look away. Can’t even blink.

He should have done more. He should have gone down, taking as many of the Rittenhouse bastards as he could with him. He should have been found with his wife and child, should have been buried beside them.

“You are a monster. A _killer_. Not my husband. Not my Garcia.”

He breathes out, ragged, wet. “Lorena. Lorena, I—”

She clutches at the crucifix resting against her clavicle. The necklace he gave to her when Iris was baptized. “My Garcia would have met us at the gates of Heaven. A hero. Our hero.”

He shakes his head. “I tried—I tried to get you _back_. To make things _right_. I tried to—”

“You are a _murderer_.”

He opens his mouth to tell her, to explain to her how he would have done anything to get her and Iris back, how he would have hugged each of them goodbye, how he would have found someplace secluded to blow his brains out just as soon as he was convinced they were safe, when a fist pounds on the door to his cell.

Lorena vanishes.

He reaches out for her then, his fingers touching the space she occupied, but she is well and truly gone.

“Visitor,” says the guard. 

Flynn does not have visitors. He has no friends, no family. He’s a terrorist buried in a prison full of the government’s most wanted—it’s not as if the inmates are granted visitation rights. “Who—?”

The guard doesn’t answer. 

Flynn presents his arms through the slot in his door. Cuffs are slapped onto each of his wrists, the metal clicking so tight it bites into his wrists.

“Stand away from the door. One wrong move and I’ll throw you down a hole so deep you’ll wish you were back in solitary.”

Flynn stands in the center of his cell, thoughts swirling. Who could it be? Rittenhouse, come to finish the job?

The cell door rolls open and the guard steps inside, glancing around with wary eyes as if Flynn has the resources to set up an elaborate booby trap. He chains Flynn, wrist to wrist, ankle to ankle, securing both sets of extremities to a circle of chain around his waist.

Six months ago, Flynn stood before a jury much the same way. Like a rabid animal, in need of being put down.

But they won’t put him down.

The information he has on Rittenhouse is too valuable.

“Sit on the bed,” the guard says. “Keep your hands visible at all times.”

Flynn shuffles the short distance to the bed. He sits, hands in his lap.

The guard leaves and Flynn’s door rolls closed with a _clang_. 

Five minutes. Maybe less. And it’s the longest exchange he’s had with another human being in six long months.

Flynn hunches forward, face in his hands, suddenly and completely exhausted.

Two minutes later, it isn’t an agent of Rittenhouse who comes through his door, but Agent Denise Christopher. She looks him up and down, taking in his appearance, determining whether or not he’s a threat.

“We got Lucy back,” she says, not bothering with pleasantries. “And, as it turns out, we need your help. Against Rittenhouse.”

“Fuck off,” the words come out like gravel, barely English.

“Flynn—”

“I said, fuck off.” It feels good to say. It feels good to say anything, really, after so long silent.

Christopher braces herself for an argument. It’s in the line of her shoulders, the tightening of her jaw.

Flynn looks away. At the blank wall of his cell, every nook and cranny long since memorized. He doesn’t stop looking, not even after Christopher calls for the guard. Not even when the guard returns to remove his chains.

Somewhere outside his cell, Iris giggles.

 

Flynn doesn’t expect another visit. He’s made his position clear. Crystal clear.

Or so he’d thought.

He’s lying on his bunk when the guard arrives, watching Iris out of the corner of his eye. She sits cross-legged on the concrete, dressing and undressing her favorite doll. The one they bought for her birthday. The last birthday she would ever have.

“Get up,” the guard says. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Flynn sits up, still watching Iris. Her back is to him, her hair cascading down her back. His heart clenches in his chest. He wants so badly for her to turn around, to smile at him. To see him and launch herself into his arms. To have her call him Daddy, just one last time.

“C’mon,” the guard says. “I don’t have all day. You know the drill. Arms out so I can cuff you.”

Flynn stands and Iris disappears. 

He closes his eyes against the pain and presents himself to the guard. Like before, less than five minutes later, he finds himself sitting on his bunk with chains jangling at his wrists, waist, and ankles.

Agent Christopher enters his cell. Followed by Lucy.

Lucy, who wears a ball cap pulled low over her face. A makeshift disguise. Her hazel eyes are framed by dark smudges. Her cheeks are gaunt. She’s thinner than he remembers her being, but also smaller, somehow. 

He’s seen that look before. In prisoners of war.

“No offense, Lucy,” he says, gravel-rough, “but you’ve looked better.”

He expects a flash of annoyance, but she just looks at him. She smiles, small and sad. “No offense, but so have you.”

Flynn nods, a silent ‘touche.’ “Why are you here?”

“We—” Lucy shakes her head. “I need your help.”

“No.”

She blinks, clearly thrown by his answer. “Flynn—” 

“You betrayed me, Lucy.” He was angry, for a time. He used to burn with fury, but those flames died the second he realized he was never getting his family back. All that’s left now are the ashes of his grief. 

“I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t know I was being followed.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Christopher says. “Lucy was trying to help you and I took advantage of that in order to bring you in.”

Flynn frowns. He stares hard at Lucy, something coiled tight in the back of his mind relaxing for the first time in six months.

“You were right,” Lucy says, expression pained. “You were so, so right. About Rittenhouse. About everything.”

Flynn shrugs. “And? This is not news, Lucy.”

Lucy takes off her ball cap. She runs her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her face. She looks at him, meeting his stare. “I’m willing—I’m willing to do what it takes now. Anything. As long as we get rid of them for good.”

Christopher shifts her weight, hands behind her back. Not quite in agreement.

From his interrogation six months ago, Flynn knows Lucy’s secret. That her dearest, darling mother was Rittenhouse, all along. That Lucy must have been being groomed to take her place at her parent’s side her entire life.

He’d thought, during some of his darkest moments, that Lucy must have joined the Rittenhouse ranks of her own volition. That the mess at her mother’s house was staged, made to look like a struggle. If Lucy were Rittenhouse, her involvement explained why she was so hell-bent on helping them, even after he explained—repeatedly, across space and time—what needed to be done to put a stop to them, once and for all.

Now, he shakes his head. Unwilling to trust her. “What do you want from me?”

“You’ve had more… _contact_ with Rittenhouse than anyone.”

“Besides yourself, you mean.”

“I was a prisoner for most of it. And not exactly a model prisoner. Even when I started to,” she winces, “ _behave_ , they didn’t trust me. Not really. Not with anything that could help us.”

“And so you want, what, information? In exchange for what?”

Lucy opens her mouth, but not knowing the answer, looks to Christopher.

Christopher shakes her head. “In exchange for stopping Rittenhouse.”

Flynn leans against the wall, the concrete cool on his back through his jumpsuit. “Not good enough.”

“Flynn, please.” The lines around Lucy’s eyes are desperate.

“Not good enough,” he grinds out.

“What if—what if we get you out of here?” 

Flynn flinches.

“No, absolutely not,” Christopher says. “He’s a terrorist.”

“He’s not. You know as well as I do that Flynn didn’t hurt his family. You _know_ he’s been working for the right side, all along. If we hadn’t gotten in his way, this would all be over.”

Christopher looks as if she’d like to shake Lucy. Not their first time hashing out this argument, then. Only the first time applied to his case, his freedom. “History would have changed. Who knows if it would have been for the better, Lucy? We brought you on to protect—”

“Rittenhouse has to be stopped. Flynn can help us. So, either we get him out of this cell or we _lose_ , Denise. History changes anyway and _definitely_ not for the better.”

Flynn closes his eyes. The sound of their voices as they argue grates on thin, frayed nerves. He should be glad of their presence, of some semblance of human contact, but now, he just wants them gone.

His breath hitches and he struggles to get it under control. He breathes in, counting to five, willing, willing, willing his heart to stop beating violently against his chest. He holds the breath for another count of five, then lets it out, slowly, through his nose. He swallows and forces himself to take in another breath. And another.

“—Flynn?”

He opens his eyes to see both women staring at him. From the tone of her voice, Lucy has said his name more than once.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She reaches out to touch him, frowning when he pulls away. “Are you sure? Because—” 

“I said, I’m fine.”

Christopher eyes him, looking for cracks in his facade. She tugs on Lucy’s arm. “We should go. It’s obvious we aren’t going to get anywhere today.”

Lucy frowns. She hesitates before finally letting Christopher pull her toward the cell door.

“What—” he starts, then licks his lips. “What did you come here to ask me?”

She stops and turns, the pure relief on her face like a punch to Flynn’s gut. “Rittenhouse jumped to South Carolina, 1955.”

Flynn searches his memory. It’s hard, when his days blur together, to remember details of his life from before the cold and grey of his cell. “There was, ah, an address. On a Rittenhouse agent I killed.”

Christopher frowns. She looks at Lucy as if to say, ‘See? See the nonchalance with which he speaks about murder? See how insane it would be to let this animal free?’

Lucy ignores her, waiting for Flynn to finish.

“145 Fuller Street, I think. Darlington, South Carolina.”

“Thank you,” Lucy says, as Christopher ushers her out of his cell.

Flynn shrugs. “This one is free. The next one will cost you.”

Lucy nods, hanging back for a moment to replace her ball cap. She meets his eyes through the bars of his cell.

And then she is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Breakfast is a cold tray pushed through the slots of his cell, consisting of scrambled powdered eggs, two links of mystery meat, a piece of dry toast, and half of a bruised banana. Flynn turns his head to look at it with disinterest before returning his gaze to the ceiling. 

He hasn’t had an appetite since the day his family died. All food turns to ash on his tongue.

Solitary confinement has done little to remedy matters. Prison food tastes like the grey of his cell. Of the concrete walls and steel bars of his cell door. Of hopelessness and isolation.

“You should eat,” Lorena says. “You’re starting to look like skin and bones.”

Flynn closes his eyes. His visions of her are infinitely more cruel when she’s kind. And not because kindness is something he doesn’t deserve.

Phantom fingers brush his scalp. 

Flynn _aches_. Aches for the nights they used to lay in their bed, Lorena’s hands in his hair, whispering to one another about a future that would, ultimately, never come to pass. He aches for her icy toes, pressed into the backs of his knees, even in the cold of winter. Aches for her terrible pranks and for the subsequent bouts of infectious laughter. Aches for the way she would hum off-tune—so very, very off-tune—while she relaxed on the sofa, a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

“Please,” Flynn whispers, breath ragged. He doesn’t know why he says it. Doesn’t know what he hopes to convey. “ _Please_.”

“Eat, Garcia. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

Lorena disappears. He doesn’t have to see the emptiness of his cell to know she is gone.

Still, he looks for her when he opens his eyes. Finding himself alone, Flynn drags himself to a sitting position. He looks at the breakfast tray, only just out of his reach in his small cell.

The guard will return for his tray shortly. He will care little whether Flynn has finished his breakfast. If Flynn is going to eat, well, time is of the essence. 

He stands, groaning as his joints pop after too long without moving. His long legs can take him the length of his cell in only a few strides, but the distance stretches on, somehow insurmountable. 

Lorena’s words echo in his mind. _Eat, Garcia. Eat, Garcia. Eat, Garcia._

For her, he will try.

He takes the tray to the small metal table attached to the wall opposite his bunk. He picks at the food with a plastic spoon. It’s gone cold, but Flynn hardly notices, focused as he is in the simple task of bringing the food to his mouth, in the process of chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing, until the tray is empty.

When he’s done, he stares at the spoon in his hand. It’s just a spoon, bright white and unassuming. But, with the long end sharpened just right, the spoon takes on a different purpose.

He’s been without a weapon since his arrest. His hands itched for a weapon—any weapon—for months. Like an addict going through withdrawal. Unsurprising, since he’s had a weapon near to hand for the better part of his life. 

He was convinced, when he was first thrown into solitary, that Rittenhouse was around every corner. That Agent Denise Christopher, and by extension Lucy, had abandoned him to his fate, alone and helpless against potential attackers. He’d had a spoon, then. He’d been determined to go out like he should have the night they came for his family.

Then, as time passed, so too did the withdrawal. His rage burned itself out. Apathy struck. Flynn rid himself of the spoon. It became too much of a risk to hide it during each raid on his cell—routine, but unscheduled checks to make certain he wasn’t hiding contraband.

But, now, his hand itches in that old, familiar way.

The guard comes for the tray. Flynn slides it through the slot in his door, holding his breath as the guard takes it. The seconds stretch on into eternities as the ramifications of what he’s done flash in through his mind. If the guard notices, if he finds the missing spoon in Flynn’s cell...

The guard doesn’t say anything. Just takes the tray and moves on to the next inmate, expression bored, eyes glazed over with disinterest. 

Flynn lies down on his bunk. He closes his eyes, and, after a few minutes, feels the phantom sensation of a tiny hand slipping into his. 

He swallows, this eyes burning. He forces himself not to look. Not to try to grab onto Iris’s hand. Fearful that if he does, she’ll disappear again. He forces himself only to whisper, “Thank you, _moj majmunčić_.”

 

Lucy watches Flynn from beneath her ball cap, pulled low over her face. Partly a disguise, partly to hide the prominent circles beneath her eyes, dark smudges no amount of concealer or foundation seem to be able to erase.

He’s thin. Much too thin. Like he hasn’t eaten properly in the six months since his arrest. She can see each of his ribs beneath his white undershirt as he sits, cuffed, to the hospital bed. Lank hair hangs over his forehead, as if he hasn’t bothered to—or hasn’t been able to—wash it properly since she last saw him.

Five weeks ago. 

Something about his eyes, however, makes Lucy’s breath catch. They’re over-bright with pain, yes, having just been stabbed, but something else lurks in those stormy blue eyes. Something feral, almost manic. 

“A Rittenhouse agent stabbed you?” Denise asks, tone incredulous. “That’s impossible.”

“With a spoon,” he says, grinning. “Over breakfast.”

Denise’s eyes narrow. “Where is he, then? We should hold him for questioning.”

Flynn grins wider. “That’s going to be difficult.”

“Why?”

Lucy winces, already knowing the answer. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Flynn’s wild expression, the full force of it when he turns it on her, is terrible. Not at all like the Flynn she’s come to know over the past two and a half years. “Severed his carotid artery.”

Denise still doesn’t look convinced. “Flynn—”

“Thanks for coming to check up on me,” he interrupts. “I honestly didn’t think you cared. Either of you.”

Guilt pools in Lucy’s stomach. Neither of them had known he was injured until they arrived at the prison and the guards ushered them toward the prisons’ medical center. They’d come for an entirely different reason.

Flynn must see something in Lucy’s expression, because he tilts his head with a quiet, “Oh, I see. Let me guess, Rittenhouse took another trip?”

“To Los Angeles. January 2, 1941.”

He stares at her, expectant. He laughs after a moment, a quick bark of laughter cut off by a hiss of breath as he holds a hand over his newly patched stab wound. “How is it you and your team continually beat me? Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Or are you just stumbling around in the dark?”

Lucy frowns. They _have_ been floundering these last few missions, as much as it hurts to hear it aloud. “Flynn—”

He glares at her. “No.”

“Please, Flynn.”

“I told you the next time would cost you, Lucy.”

Denise sighs. “I can try to put in a request to get you into a more...secure situation.”

Flynn shakes his head. “So you can throw me down a hole deeper than solitary? Fuck you.”

“I meant, we could station a guard outside your door until all of this is over. I could see about getting you access to the library. Or limited internet—”

His eyes spark with unbridled hope at the mention of the library—can he really be so starved for entertainment?—but the hope morphs into white hot fury just as quickly as it appears. He pulls at the chains cuffing him to the bed until they pull taut. “I don’t want a _fucking_ Netflix subscription.”

His white undershirt spots with blood. Flynn doesn’t seem to notice he’s re-opened his wound until he follows Denise and Lucy’s collective gaze to his side. He hisses out a breath and slowly leans back against the raised head of his hospital bed. He closes his eyes. “Can one of you, ah—”

Denise seems to weigh the pros and cons of leaving Lucy alone with Flynn, but she must not think of Flynn as much of a threat, injured and chained as he is, because she says, “I’ll get the doctor.”

When she’s gone, Lucy tiptoes closer to the bed.

Flynn cracks one eye to look at her, but closes it once he sees her. “Now’s your chance.”

“My chance?”

“To finish the job.”

Lucy’s brows draw down in confusion. “To finish the—you mean kill you? Flynn, what the hell? I’m not here to—I’m not going to _kill_ you.”

Flynn shrugs, as if to say, ‘A shame, really.’

“I wasn’t lying last time,” Lucy says, urging him to believe her. “I meant it. I’m going to try to get you out. With or without Denise’s help. Obviously, things will be way easier if Denise is on board, so if you could _please_ attempt to play nice? Show her how much we need you. And I promise, I will do everything I can to convince her to break you out of here.”

“Just like you convinced Lindbergh?” 

The memory of that failure still stings. “No, because this time I’m not taking no for an answer.”

He opens both eyes to look at her. The storm in them has died down, leaving a dulled, desperate exhaustion. He sighs. “Do you have a pen and paper on you? It’ll be easier for me to draw it.”

Just as Flynn is finishing up a rough sketch on a crumpled napkin Lucy dug out from the bottom of her purse, Denise returns with the doctor. She takes one look at Flynn with the pen in his hand and sighs. “Lucy.”

“It’s alright,” she says. 

As if to prove her point, Flynn slides both the paper and the pen across the thin mattress toward Lucy. He looks at Denise as if to say, ‘See? I can be trusted.’

Denise shakes her head. “Did you get the information we came here for, Lucy? We need to hurry and get back before _something_ changes and we’re too late to stop it.”

“And as much as I love an audience,” the doctor says, already lifting Flynn’s shirt and removing the bandage to examine the damage to Flynn’s side, “I’ve got to redo these stitches, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

With a hand on Lucy’s lower back, Denise ushers Lucy out of the room. Lucy stops for only a moment when Flynn calls out, “I’m trusting you, Lucy.”

Lucy squares her shoulders as if she’s going into battle and lets Denise lead her out of the maze-like prison and back to Denise’s sensible SUV.


	3. Chapter 3

Flynn’s words run through Lucy’s head on a loop. _I’m trusting you, Lucy._

He’s said something similar to her, in an entirely different context. Filled with rage as he was dragged away by DHS agents, the minute Lucy handed him the key to getting his family back. _I trusted you. I trusted you with my family. I trusted you with my child._

Those words have haunted her dreams. No more than any number of specters that haunt her dreams these days, but the guilt she still feels over his arrest, his incarceration, has only intensified after seeing Flynn chained to a hospital bed, having just survived an assassination attempt by Rittenhouse.

“We have to get him out of there,” Lucy says, mostly to the window of Denise’s SUV, to the blur of landscape as they make their way back to the bunker.

“Lucy,” Denise sighs. “I have something to tell you. About Flynn.”

Lucy braces herself for bad news. It’s almost second nature by now. “Does it matter? We need him if we’re going to win this war.”

“He’s...not right, Lucy.”

“He’s a killer, I know. But he—”

“He wasn’t stabbed by Rittenhouse,” Denise says, interrupting her.

Lucy’s brows furrow. “Then— I— What? I saw him bleed. We both did. He wasn’t faking.”

“I talked to the doctor. The prison reviewed the security footage. No one went in or out of that cell.”

“So, what, you’re saying Flynn stabbed _himself_? Why would he do that?”

Denise’s lips thin into a grim line. “It’s not...uncommon. For prisoners in solitary confinement. We see higher rates of self-harm, even suicide attempts, than in prisoners in general population.”

Lucy sways in her seat, lightheaded, like she’s just had the breath knocked out of her. Suicidal? Flynn? Surely not the man they chased doggedly through time? Not the man with the single-minded mission of getting his family back, of saving the world from Rittenhouse?

Except Lucy saw Flynn. Left alone with him, injured, cuffs at his ankles and wrists chaining him to the bed, he’d looked at her with such desolation. He’d even joked—joked?—about Lucy taking advantage of being alone with him in order to _finish the job_.

Lucy sucks in a breath. She grips at the door for stability.

“It’s possible he’s trying to manipulate us— _you_ —into helping him. But…” Denise trails off, wincing.

“But, what?”

“The guards have reported hearing him talking. Not to himself, but to someone in the cell with him. Someone only he can see.”

“So, he’s hallucinating? Is that ‘not uncommon,’ too?”

Denise shifts in her seat. She doesn’t look at Lucy. Her evasion says everything.

“We have to help him.”

“Lucy, didn’t you—?”

Lucy shakes her head. “I heard what you said. But even if you forget all the rest, _tactically_ , we can’t leave Flynn in there. We need him for information, but who's to say that information will be any good if he breaks down completely? Or, what if he hurts himself again? What if he escalates and does something _worse_? He was absolutely right when he said we were floundering around in the dark. We can’t afford to lose his intel. And we _will_ lose it, if things continue as they are.”

Denise’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I don’t have the authority to get him out of prison, even if I wanted to.”

“We have a historian, a Homeland Security agent, a few genius engineers, and a Delta Force soldier on our team. Oh, and a time machine. I’m sure we can think of something.”

“And _where_ are we supposed to keep him? I don’t have any spare facilities capable of holding a terrorist. I don’t have the round-the-clock staff required to watch over him.”

Lucy bites her lip, already knowing the response. “He can stay in the bunker. It’s a tight fit, but we can clear out one of the storage rooms.”

“Absolutely not. He’s tried to kill all of you on a number of occasions. He tried to wipe you and your family out of existence, Lucy. What’s to stop him from killing all of you in your sleep and stealing the Lifeboat for himself?” 

“He won’t.” Lucy doesn’t have any proof, but over the last few years, she’s learned to trust her gut. “We have the same goal. Stop Rittenhouse. He needs us just as much as we need him in order to do that.”

Denise frowns. Lucy can almost hear the cogs turning in her head. Finally, she sighs. “I will _think_ about it.”

Lucy sits back in her seat as a wave of relief washes over her. “Thank you.”

Denise nods, but doesn’t take her eyes off the road.

 

Lorena’s humming used to grate on his nerves, but now, as she sits on the edge of Flynn’s hospital bed, he clings to the sound of it.

He didn’t expect her to follow him from his cell, but he’s grateful, so very grateful to have her nearby. Even when he knows she really isn’t, that he’s alone in the prison’s medical center. Her presence, even if it’s all in his head, fucked up as it is, is the only thing keeping him from devolving into full-blown panic.

Compared to his cell, the medical center is massive. It stretches outward and outward and outward. The room isn’t grey, but a sterile white, almost blinding in its intensity. The fluorescent lights buzzing in the ceiling above him banish any and all shadow, leaving him exposed, unable to hide.

The cuffs at his wrists and ankles bite into his skin with every movement. The chains rattle and clank with every slight shift of his body.

His hands itch for a weapon, but he closes them into fists. Not here. Not now.

He closes his eyes and tries to focus on Lorena’s humming. The song is vaguely familiar, irritating in that he can’t seem to place it. Something from the radio? One of Lorena’s old records? A theme song from one of Iris’ cartoons?

Outside the medical center, a security door buzzes. Metal clanks as the door opens, closing shortly after, the time in between just long enough to let someone through.

Lorena smiles and then fades into nothing.

“No,” he says. “Lorena, please. Please, no. Don’t go.”

Footsteps approach the medical center. Heavy boots followed by the echoing click of heels. Flynn goes still, deathly still, as the door to the medical center swings open.

“I’ll be right outside, Agent Christopher,” the guard says, before shutting the door.

Christopher eyes Flynn as has become her custom, keeping her distance from him like she would a rabid dog.

“Where’s Lucy?” he asks. 

“Travelling.”

Obviously. He’s annoyed at himself for even asking. It’s only been a few hours since she and Christopher first stood in the medical center. Of course Lucy would still be out on the jump. “I don’t see any release paperwork for me to sign.”

“No,” she says.

“Here to finish me off yourself? Put an end to your little problem?”

Christopher’s lips thin into a line. “Don’t tempt me, Flynn.”

“C’mon,” he drawls. “There wouldn’t even be an inquest. And if you’re feeling creative, I’m sure you could find something within these luxury accommodations to suit—”

Christopher marches toward him, her heels clicking.

Flynn presses himself into the mattress. He didn’t actually expect an upstanding DHS agent such as Denise Christopher to take him up on his offer, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time his mouth got him into trouble. He stares at her, waiting, determined not to fight. Even dead, he couldn’t stand for Lucy to hate him. And she would hate him if he so much as laid a finger on her makeshift mother figure.

Christopher takes his hand, pressing a small square something into his palm. On reflex, his hand closes around it as she bends to whisper into his ear. “Follow these instructions to the letter. If you deviate in any way, if you even _think_ of turning left instead of right, I will kill you, Flynn.”

She squeezes Flynn’s hand, hard, looking for confirmation.

Flynn licks his lips and nods.

Christopher straightens. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Flynn nods again. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. 

He hardly even trusts this moment is happening. He’s hallucinating again. Has to be. No way DHS Agent Denise Christopher is putting her job—her _life—_ on the line to break a convicted terrorist out of a maximum security prison.

Her brown eyes narrow with something not quite concern. “Flynn? I know your mother designed rockets, but I’m going to need you grounded from here on out. Do you hear me? No space walks.”

That surprises a laugh out of him. A smile tugs on his lips. “No space walks.”

“Good.” Christopher turns on her heel and leaves Flynn alone in the medical center.

He follows her movements, the sound of her heels mingled with the stomp of the guard’s boots. The security door buzzes. The door clanks as it opens and closes.

Flynn secrets her note away. It won’t be safe to unfold the square or read it until he’s back in his cell. Until then, all he can do is wait for the doctor to clear him.

And keep himself grounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for all the comments and kudos! i'm having such a great time writing this and i'm glad to know people are enjoying it. :)
> 
> next time: the escape! with a high probability of more angst! stay tuned!


	4. Chapter 4

Iris watches as Flynn works through the night digging through the concrete wall of his cell. She she leans over his shoulder, silent, her teddy bear hugged tight to her chest.

He glances at her more fully when he stops to wipe sweat from his brow. He smiles at her, his little girl, but she only stares back, her brown eyes wide. Her lips are twisted into an unhappy pout.

“What’s wrong, _moj_ _majmunčić_?”

“You’re leaving,” she says, her voice small and sad. “You’re leaving mommy and me.”

Flynn closes his eyes against the familiar stab of grief. “Iris—”

“Don’t you want to be with us? Don’t you love us anymore?”

Flynn’s eyes fly open. He licks his lips. “More than—more than anything.”

Iris’s bottom lip wobbles. Her eyes shine, even in the dark of his cell. Tears collect on her bottom lashes.

Flynn swallows. He reaches out, hands shaking, but Iris shakes her head. She skitters away from him, to the far side of his cell.

“You said you would always be there! To protect me from the monsters!” she wails.

“I tried, _majmunčić_. I tried. I wanted—” 

“They hurt me. They hurt me and mommy, but you weren’t there. And now you’re leaving.” She stamps her little foot and buries her face in the plush fur of the teddy, hiding her tears. Her shoulders tremble with her sobs.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“You’re not!” She throws her teddy bear across the cell, where it disappears into the ether. Her expression twists with rage. “You’re not sorry! You don’t care!”

Flynn’s vision blurs, but he wipes viciously at his eyes, dashing away any trace of wetness.

Iris turns and runs through the bars of his cell, disappearing like mist on the other side.

Flynn drags in an unsteady breath. His forces his mind blank, to put everything away, to compartmentalize. He can fall apart later, after he’s escaped. Now, he needs to focus. To be strong. 

Gritting his teeth, Flynn goes back to sawing through the wall of his cell. 

His wound throbs, but he welcomes the pain. Uses it to keep himself going. To keep himself from looking behind him, at the corner where he knows Lorena now stands, arms crossed over her chest, a frown pulling at her lips. 

 

Hidden behind the brick Flynn pries loose from his cell wall is a plastic bag. Inside, he expects to find a key, a card key, and a gasmask. These are the items outlined in Christopher’s detailed note. But Flynn finds something else amongst the literal keys to his escape—a scrawled Post-It, curling with age, the ink faded. 

Two lines. Two different handwritings. The first line written in a flowing script, neat and precise:

_Good luck! :)_

The second line, bolder, written with more strength exerted on the pen, in all capital letters, slanting severely to the right: 

_**DON’T KILL ANYONE.** _

Flynn stares at the note, the first line written by Lucy. He would recognize her handwriting if he had to pick it out of a hundred identical Post Its. He used to see it in his dreams, exhausted, but barely able to manage anything more than a lucid doze, passages from her journal dancing behind his eyelids.

The second line was written by Wyatt. It doesn’t take an ex-NSA asset to figure _that_ out. Tagging along at Lucy’s heels, unhappy and unwilling to assist in Flynn's escape, going along with the plan only because it was Lucy who requested it, Wyatt _would_ feel the need to tack on a reminder not to kill anyone.

As if Flynn rejoices in cold blooded murder. As if he hasn’t killed only because it was necessary, because—

“It wasn’t really necessary, was it?” Lorena asks. “You only told yourself it was necessary so you could keep going, so you could keep _killing_ in our names.”

Flynn flinches. He swallows, but doesn’t meet her eyes. “They were bad men. They needed to be stopped.”

“You were willing to kill more than just men, weren’t you? Women. Children.” Lorena sneers in disgust. “Children, Garcia!”

“They would have grown up inside Rittenhouse. They would have become—“ Flynn cuts himself off, unable to continue. The excuses taste bitter, coppery, on his tongue.

Flynn shuts his eyes. Lorena is still there, but he can’t bare to look at her.

Not long, now, anyhow. Until his escape. If this were just another NSA operation, back before Rittenhouse turned his life upside down, he’d review the dossier one last time. Be sure he had the mission parameters memorized. The whos, the whats, the whys.

Now, Flynn leans back against the wall and simply waits.

Either Christopher honors her side of the bargain or next time Flynn will be more strategic about where he inserts the sharpened end of a plastic spoon.

Minutes go by. Little eternities Flynn has become accustomed to over his six months of solitary confinement. He breathes in through decades, scores, centuries and breathes out through millenniums, epochs, and eons. Stars are birthed, planets formed, entire species rise to the top of the food chain before they go extinct, all just outside his six foot by eight foot concrete square, all in the drag of sixty little seconds.

The alarm blares. The sound reverberates around him, through him, much too loud after living so long in near silence. He bites down on the urge to cover his ears with his hands and watches as the door to his cell opens.

The gas rolls in like a dense fog. Outside his cell, guards hack and cough. 

Flynn picks up the key and the card key and the gas mask one by one, taking his time, allowing the gas to put the rest of the prison to sleep. As he steps outside his cell, he pulls the gas mask over his head, settling it over his nose and mouth.

His long legs take him through the prison almost on autopilot. His hands insert the key into locks, they swipe the card key for doors requiring higher security clearance. His mind, for once, is blissfully blank. Focused.

Except for the way his hands itch. Particularly when he steps over the unconscious bodies of prison staff. When his eyes automatically go to the guns at the guards’ hips. Flynn ignores the itch and continues hallway after hallway, making his way up, up, up to the surface.

His lungs start to burn. Not because the gas mask is failing, but because Flynn has declined to go outside for his one hour of recreation time for the past four months. He hasn’t seen the point in it, trading one cage for another. Hasn’t seen the point in keeping in shape, either.

He refuses to believe his chest is tight for any other reason. That the rapid-fire beating of his heart is due to anything other than the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Anything more than the thrill of his escape. Of a mission well executed.

It isn’t until he’s sitting in the front seat of an old sedan, hands working the wires beneath the steering column, coaxing it to start, that Flynn realizes he must have blacked out. He can’t recall how he broke free from the prison, or how he managed to get to the car Christopher left for him, miles from the facility.

He freezes, wires in hand, blood going cold. He does a quick inventory, checking himself over. 

He’s no longer wearing his prison jumpsuit. Instead, he’s wearing a soft, black turtleneck, a sabal leather jacket, and dark blue jeans. Civilian clothes, current decade, new, by the smell, although there are no tags. His wound throbs, but the stitches are still intact. Glancing in the rear view mirror, Flynn finds no blood on his face. Just his own wide, blue eyes. Frightened, confused, panicked.

He takes in a shaky breath, then, working quickly, starts the car. For one long, irrational second, Flynn wants to go back. Back to the prison. Back to his cell. 

Flynn shifts the car into drive and forces himself to drive in the opposite direction. 

 

He tries the radio. 

It’s an hour’s drive toward the government-issued bunker Christopher described in her note. The radio is a luxury, entertainment being nonexistent in solitary confinement. Not something he ever thought he would take for granted before he was imprisoned. But after trying three stations, after the noise grates on his nerves like silverware on fine china, Flynn scrabbles at the volume knob to turn it off.

He drives in silence.

 

Christopher stands at the entrance to the bunker. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she stares into the car.

Flynn stares back, hands gripping the steering wheel. The car is off, his seat belt disengaged. He meant to get out, meant to make some smart-ass remark, but his hand got as far as the handle before it started shaking.

The world outside is much too big. Better to stay inside the car. Locked away. As he should be.

Christopher gives him five minutes before she approaches the car. Her hands are on her hips, showing off the gun holstered under her suit jacket. She moves slowly, warily, eyes never leaving his. “Playtime is over, Flynn. Get out of the car before I toss your ass back in prison.”

“I thought I’d take in the scenery,” he says, but it’s not loud enough for Christopher to hear through the glass. 

“What? Flynn, now. I mean it.”

Flynn reaches again for the handle. Again, it shakes. Again, he places it back on the steering wheel, holding tight to control the tremors. 

Christopher’s eyes narrow. She rounds the front of the car and pulls open the passenger side door. She leans in, taking in the sight of him sitting ramrod straight, his jaw clenched shut, and sighs. She dros onto the passenger seat, swings both legs inside the car, and shuts the car door. “I thought I said no space walks.”

“E-easier said than done.”

Christopher frowns. “What do you need?”

Flynn blinks cold sweat out of his eyes, still unwilling to take his hands off the peeling leather of the steering wheel. He licks his lips. “Ah. Time. I think.”

“You think?”

“I’d consult the manual, but I must have left it back in my cell.”

Christopher’s lips turn up in a wry smile. “You must not be feeling too terrible if you’re cracking jokes.”

“Defense mechanism.” Flynn closes his eyes and shakes his head. He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to share _anything_ with the woman responsible for sending him to prison. Least of all this moment of weakness.

“Right. I think I read that somewhere in your file.”

Flynn looks at her, brows drawn down in a silent question.

“Somewhere in your psych eval. Along with evidence of some serious survivors’ guilt and signs of PTSD.”

Flynn swallows. “File tell you anything else?”

“That you were a good man, once. A man who loved his family more than his own life.”

Flynn leans down, resting his forehead on the steering wheel between his hands. He forces himself to breathe, in and out, in and out.

Christopher sits beside him, a silent presence. Someone he shouldn’t trust, but someone he’s grateful to for sitting watch while he gets himself back under control.

Finally, Flynn sits up. He reaches for the handle and pushes the door open. He unfolds himself from the small, cramped space and stands at his full height. He sways a little, exhaustion hitting him like a punch to the gut.

“Need a hand?” Christopher asks as she, too, exits the car.

Flynn shakes his head.

Christopher leads him toward a concrete building with a steel door. She punches a code into a hidden panel and the door, inches thick, probably lined with lead, swings opens into a small room.

More concrete. More steel. More grey.

“Home sweet home,” Flynn mutters.

Christopher smiles. “It’s not perfect, but at least it isn’t solitary.”

Flynn frowns. He gestures to the ladder which must lead into the bunker. “Ladies first.”

“Not this time, Flynn. Convicted terrorists first, please.”

Flynn shrugs. He climbs down the ladder, dropping down the last few rungs. The room he finds himself in is identical to the first, with another door and another keypad.

Christopher descends. She pushes a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and goes to the keypad. She enters a code and the thick steel door swings open. Christopher steps away from the door and nods her head for Flynn to enter before her.

Once they’re both through, Christopher leads Flynn through a wide hallway. Ventilation fans spin along the steel walls, the sound muffling their footsteps. “This is the bathroom. There’s no lock, but I believe the current protocol is to place the chair in front of the door if you need privacy. Down here, you’ll find the bedrooms. Two bunks to a room. Rufus and Wyatt in this one, Lucy and Jiya across the hall. Further down is the room belonging to Connor Mason.”

“And mine?” 

“We had to improvise. I wasn’t expecting to bring anyone else into the bunker, so we had to clear out one of the storage rooms. It’s small, but you’re used to that by now, aren’t you?”

Flynn frowns.

“Right. Well, through here is the main room. We have a kitchen, common area, and the Lifeboat bay. You’re to stay away from the Lifeboat and all of the systems operating it. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.” 

“Good. Play nice with your teammates, provide intel when necessary, and _don’t_ make me regret this.” Christopher gestures for him to proceed her into the main room, where Flynn can already hear the murmur of voices.

Flynn takes a deep breath, steeling himself to face a room full of people who were, until very recently, his enemies. He smiles and scoffs as he steps into view. “And to think I escaped prison for _this_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to get this chapter out way earlier, but i just put in my two weeks at one job, i start another job in another city at the end of those two weeks, and i'm trying to deal with all the foolishness involved with moving. 
> 
> anyway, i hope you liked it! didn't i mention there would be more angst last chapter?? :P


	5. Chapter 5

For the first time in a long, long time. Lucy is walking on air. Waltzing, even.

It’s been years since Lucy let herself fall in love, but here she is, weightless, floating. Happy.

She’d honestly given up hope of it ever happening. With her schooling and then her career, with taking care of Amy, and her mother’s illness, Lucy had too much on her plate to consider going on dates. She’d quietly resigned herself to spinsterhood, convinced herself her work was enough, that she didn’t _need_ a relationship as long as she had her sister by her side. 

Coming back from the Hindenburg to find Noah was unexpected. And unwanted. He’d smile, helplessly besotted, and it made Lucy want to shrink back. He didn’t know her. Not the _real_ her. 

Wyatt, however. Wyatt knows her. And Lucy knows Wyatt. They’re teammates. Partners.

_Lovers_.

They’re sitting close, talking quietly together on the sofa in the common room, when Flynn saunters in, followed by Denise.

Wyatt’s smile falls from his face. His eyes narrow at Flynn and his hand twitches toward where his gun would still be holstered if he hadn’t removed it when they returned from the jump.

Flynn gives Wyatt a feral grin.

They stare at one another, two predators each sizing up the other.

Lucy takes Wyatt’s hand in hers and squeezes it, hoping to diffuse some of the tension. When that doesn’t work, she bumps her shoulder into his, a silent reminder of his promise to at least _try_ to get along with their newest teammate.

Finally, Wyatt drags his gaze from Flynn. He flashes a boyish, chagrined smile at Lucy and runs his free hand through his hair.

“You made it,” Lucy says to Flynn. “Just in time. We got back from the jump about an hour ago.”

Flynn’s eyes are caught on hers and Wyatt’s joined hands, an emotion flashing behind his eyes too quick for her to catch. Beside Flynn, Denise also stares at their hands. She looks at Lucy, then Wyatt, frowning.

“Wyatt,” Denise says, disapproval clear in her voice. “Can I speak with you? Privately?”

With one last reluctant squeeze, Lucy lets Wyatt’s hand slip from hers. 

Wyatt stands. “This about keeping this asshole on a short leash?”

Flynn smiles wider, puts his hands in his pockets, and very pointedly looks around the bunker, taking in his surroundings, but not Wyatt’s bait. When he spots Rufus and Jiya huddled around the Lifeboat systems, he gives a jaunty little wave.

Jiya, eyes wide, waves back. 

Wyatt disappears around the corner with Denise. Rufus and Jiya duck behind the computer, leaving Lucy alone with Flynn.

“Did you, uh, make it here okay?” Lucy asks.

Flynn shrugs. He meanders through the kitchen tables and chairs before pulling out a seat with a screech of metal. He drops into the chair and kicks both feet onto the table. 

Casual, but maybe _too_ casual. Because underneath all the bluster, Flynn looks like a spring wound too tight. Like if someone were to touch him, he’d fly apart.

“Are you hungry, at all? Maybe?” Lucy winces at her own awkwardness, but what else is she supposed to say? This is the man who used to regularly shoot at them, who stranded them in the past, who was so desperate to bring back his wife and child that he was willing to blow up an entire building full of people, knowing it would erase Lucy from history. She might sympathize with him, she might be willing to work with him, but they aren’t exactly friends.

Are they?

“No,” he says. And then, “Thank you.”

“I’m—I’m glad you’re here. And not still—”

Lucy’s floundering attempts at conversation are interrupted by the blare of an alarm. Not the usual alarm, the one alerting them any time the Mothership jumps, but a different alarm. Louder, more urgent. “What the hell?”

“It’s not Rittenhouse,” Jiya says. She pops into action, hands flying over the keyboard. She glances over the monitor at Flynn. “Or, is it? Could they have followed you here?”

“Maybe he betrayed us,” Rufus says, but his expression is uncertain.

Flynn stands, alert and ready. His eyes dart over the space, something Lucy has seen Wyatt do, counting exits, evaluating options in case they need to take cover. “Protocol?” 

It takes Lucy a moment to realize he’s asking her. She shakes her head. “I—I don’t know. Denise. Denise should still be here.”

“Stay here,” he says. “Be ready to jump.”

“To where?” Jiya asks.

“And when?” Rufus adds.

Flynn opens his mouth and then closes it, radiating frustration. “How do you not have a protocol for this?”

“Oversight on my part,” Denise says, striding into the room, her chunky heels clicking against the metal floor, looking harried. 

“Where’s Wyatt?” Lucy asks, peering around Denise when he doesn’t appear. “What’s going on?”

Denise frowns. “Wyatt’s gone.”

“Gone?” Rufus asks. “What do you mean gone?”

“Did something happen to Wyatt’s wife, in your timeline?” Denise asks.

Lucy and Rufus exchange glances.

“She was dead,” Lucy says. “Murdered. Over six years ago. They found her on the side of the road, strangled.”

Flynns frowns, dark brows furrowing, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Dead?” Denise lets out a deep breath. “That explains it. I saw—I didn’t want him involving Lucy in his marital problems. I thought I’d pull him aside, talk to him, but as soon as I mentioned Jessica, he bolted.” 

Lucy stops waltzing. Stops walking, even. Wind whistles in her ears as she comes crashing down to Earth, back to reality.

Their new reality.

“Wait, Jessica’s alive?” Rufus looks at Jiya, who nods. “How is that possible?”

Rufus and Jiya type furiously at their respective keyboards. The clacking of keys stops almost as soon as it begins. Both turn to look at one another with wide, worried eyes.

“Well?” Denise prompts.

“According to the logs,” Jiya continues, “while you guys were in 1941, the Mothership jumped for about an hour to San Diego. 1980.”

“They must have changed history,” Lucy says. Her stomach hasn’t yet bottomed out from her fall. Her heart aches. “They must have brought Jessica back.”

“But why would they do that?” Rufus asks. “To make Wyatt quit the team? So he can, what, start a family?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy sighs. “Maybe. We didn’t do so well the last time we tried to replace him. Rittenhouse could be counting on us to fall apart after losing Wyatt again.”

“I’ll go after him,” Denise says. “You all sit tight. I want no more unauthorized—”

“No.”

Everyone turns to Lucy.

“No?” Denise studies Lucy as if Lucy has suddenly taken ill.

“His wife has been dead for six years. Let him—Let him go to her. He deserves that much.”

“And if the Mothership jumps?”

Lucy turns to Flynn. “Can we count on you?”

Flynn’s eyes search hers, expression unreadable. 

“Hell no,” Rufus says.

“He got Rufus shot,” Jiya says, as if Lucy needs to be reminded.

“We’re down a soldier and just so happen to have a spare. So, Flynn, I’m asking: If the Mothership jumps, can we count on you? Can we _trust_ you?”

Flynn nods, a tip of his head so deep it almost resembles a bow.

Denise’s jaw works as she bites back an argument. Her eyes flash and she straightens, mind made up. “As much as I hate to admit it, Lucy is right.”

“What?” Rufus and Jiya squawk at the same time.

“You’re kidding, right?” Rufus scrubs a hand over his head. “This is _Flynn_ we’re talking about.”

Denise turns to Flynn. “Lucy is in charge. You will follow her lead, obey her _every_ instruction. And if you hurt—”

“I won’t,” Flynn says. “You have my word.”

“Great,” Rufus mutters. “As much as that counts for anything.”

“Then, it’s settled.” Denis looks around the bunker, at each of their unhappy faces. “I’ll be back to check on you later. I need to deal with the fallout from Flynn’s escape.”

Denise gets halfway to the exit before Flynn calls out. “I’ll need a weapon.”

Denise’s response is immediate. She doesn’t stop nor does she turn around. “Out of the question.”

Flynn looks as if he wants to follow, wants to argue. His eyes narrow and his hands clench at his sides. But he stands tall and unmoving even as Rufus and Jiya also disperse to work on the Lifeboat. Lucy gives him a weak, apologetic smile, and makes her own hasty retreat.

She keeps it together long enough to reach the room she shares with Jiya, long enough to lock the door and to slump sideways onto her cot, her face pressed into her pillow.

Then, and only then, does she allow her heart to break and her tears to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, we're starting to diverge a little from canon a little. 
> 
> mostly because the first rule of going into hiding is to get rid of your extremely traceable smartphone??? there's probably a genius solution built into the canon of the show for why wyatt is able to keep his phone and also be able to receive texts from jessica (especially since they are underground????), but in my version we're just going to assume NO CELLPHONES. :P 
> 
> also, poor, poor lucy. :C
> 
> (did i mention this is a slow burn?? i should probably add that to the tags.)
> 
> anyway! thanks for reading!!


	6. Chapter 6

Once outside the bunker, Wyatt spots the old sedan parked near the entrance. The car Denise must have arranged for Flynn to take during his escape from prison. The prison where the tall Croatian should still be, rotting for the rest of his miserable life, if Lucy hadn’t—well, if Lucy hadn’t looked at Wyatt with those big hazel eyes of hers, determined that saving Flynn was the right thing to do. The only thing to do, if they’re going to destroy Rittenhouse.

Wyatt can’t think about Lucy now. And he definitely doesn’t want to think about Flynn. Right now, all his thoughts are on Jessica. Jessica alive. Saved, somehow. Waiting for him to come home from his latest mission. Like the last six years of throwing himself from one covert op to the next never happened.

Rufus is better at hot-wiring cars than Wyatt, but it only takes a minute of fiddling with the already exposed wires to get the car to start. He turns the car around and drives it down the dirt path, gritting his teeth against the uneven terrain, until he gets to a road. The road is deserted of traffic, stretching empty for miles in either direction. He’ll be driving for hours to get to Jessica, to the small apartment they share, to the bar where she’ll no doubt be working. 

But nothing, not time nor distance, will keep him from her.

Never again.

 

A week passes and not for the first time since going into hiding does Lucy long for her cell phone. Not that it would work within the lead-lined walls of the bunker, but still, Lucy longs for it. She never thought of herself as someone who would long for anything, and certainly not a cellphone. But, Lucy has been without a phone for a little over half a year and she misses it. Misses having instant access to Outlook. Misses having Google at her fingertips. Missing being able to catch up on shitty television on a tiny screen from the comfort of her couch. Misses having friends and family only one text message away.

All Lucy needs is one simple message. Just a word or two to let her know Wyatt’s okay.

Unable to do anything else, Lucy resigns herself to wait.

 

Lucy sits at one of the kitchen tables, a bowl of microwaved canned soup cooling in front of her. Behind the bowl of soup sits a stack of dusty history books, one of the books propped open against the stack, allowing Lucy to read without using her hands. Beside her is her notebook, the page already half filled with her scrawled notes.

Lucy’s eyes track across the page, but she doesn't actually comprehended any of the words swimming before her. The fifth time she catches herself, she sits back in her chair with a sigh. And, for the first time in hours, she looks up.

Rufus and Jiya stand next to one another, hands held between them like a pair of creepy twins straight out of a horror movie, staring at her.

Lucy starts, fighting back a scream. She laughs at her own overreaction, hand on her clavicle, fingertips vibrating with the hummingbird beat of her heart. “Sorry. You scared me.”

Jiya smiles apologetically while Rufus shuffles from foot to foot.

“Did you, um, need something?” Lucy asks.

Jiya looks at Rufus, but when he doesn’t say anything, she elbows him in the ribs. Rufus winces, throws an accusatory glance at Jiya, before turning back to Lucy. He opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it with a click.

Jiya rolls her eyes. “We think you should have a talk with our friendly neighborhood assassin.” 

“More like ghost,” Rufus mutters.

Lucy frowns. She pushes the bowl of soup to the side, giving the pair her full attention. She wasn’t going to finish it, anyway. “Flynn? Why? What’s going on?”

“It’s been a week. And neither of us can remember seeing him. Like, at all,” Jiya says.

“Have you?” Rufus asks.

Lucy shakes her head. Since Wyatt left, Lucy hasn’t exactly been the most social person in the bunker. She’s spent the last week throwing herself into her research only to drag herself to bed at ungodly hours, aided by the bottle of cheap vodka hidden beneath her thin mattress. But it does strike Lucy as strange that she hasn’t seen Flynn since he arrived. “Maybe he’s just keeping to himself?”

“Not that I’m complaining,” Rufus puts his hands up, as if to reassure everyone of his continued ambivalence when it comes to Garcia Flynn. “But, it’s weird, right? It’s weird.” 

“And things have been going missing,” Jiya says. “Which is _extra_ weird. Especially since everything that’s disappeared seems to be of the sharp-and-pointy variety.”

Lucy frowns. “Like what?”

Jiya ticks each item off on her fingers. “Various screwdrivers. The _one_ good knife from the kitchen. Rufus’s multi-tool, which has attachments for a couple knives, a pair of scissors, and, oh, more screwdrivers.”

“That is weird,” Lucy says, her shoulders slumping. “And you can’t talk to him because?”

“He’s Flynn,” Rufus says. “And I was already shot once. I’m not about to be screwdriver-ed.”

Lucy sighs. It was probably inevitable that she become the official Flynn-Wrangler. “Okay, I’ll talk to him. But, it’s not exactly as if Flynn listens to me, so I don’t know what you’re expecting.”

Rufus and Jiya give Lucy dubious looks, but Lucy doesn’t have the energy to try and decipher what they mean. “Just give me a minute.”

Lucy pushes herself away from the table. She clears away her bowl, washing it in the sink and setting it to dry on the counter. She tidies her stack of books and puts away her notebook.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to see Flynn. Not Flynn, specifically, anyway. She doesn’t want to see anyone. Because now that Wyatt’s gone, aside from the pity she sees in their eyes and the eggshells they walk on around her, whenever Denise isn’t in the bunker, the rest of the team look at Lucy like she’s in charge. And Lucy? Lucy has no idea what she’s doing. Not in terms of taking on Rittenhouse, not in terms of protecting history _from_ Rittenhouse, and certainly not in terms of her own life.

When she can put it off no longer, Lucy meanders through the halls of the bunker to the storage closet now serving as Flynn’s room. It’s the only room with the lock on the outside, which can’t have escaped Flynn’s notice. Did Denise leave it like that on purpose? A nonverbal reminder to behave or be sent back to prison? Or was it an oversight, something no one spared a passing thought, everyone already reluctant to let Flynn inside their makeshift home?

Lucy leans against the metal door, her ear pressed against cold steel, listening for signs of movement. Beyond, Flynn talks low, his voice nothing more than a rumble.

Who could Flynn be talking to? Himself?

It’s not as if any of his new team members have jumped at the chance to have a conversation with him. 

Lucy frowns, guilt making her ears hot.

Lucy steps a polite distance away from the door and raps her knuckles against it.

Flynn doesn’t answer for so long, Lucy almost turns away. But, the door opens a crack and Flynn’s stormy eyes look at her with something like surprise. “Lucy?”

“Hey. Mind if we talk?”

He stares at her like she’s mentioned a concept entirely foreign to him. Then, he shakes his head and opens the door wider, allowing Lucy to step into his room.

The space is unchanged since the team first set it up. The bed pushed into the corner has been made to military precision. A desk piled with obsolete computers sits against the far wall. One lonely chair occupies the corner beside the desk, facing the rest of the room.

Lucy stands in the center of the room, uncertain where else to go. Flynn sits down on the bed, his shoulders rounded. His eyes flicker to the corner, to the chair, but Lucy can’t tell if he means for her to sit down or if someone only he can see might already be occupying that piece of furniture. 

“I, um,” Lucy begins, still standing, for once towering over him. “I mean, we. _We_ haven’t seen you around the bunker. Are you, uh, settling in okay?”

Flynn frowns. The circles beneath his eyes are a deep, bruised purple. “Settling in?”

“Yeah, you know, making yourself comfortable? It’s not much, but it’s home, you know?”

“Home.” The word sounds almost mangled in his mouth.

“Where the heart is?” Lucy laughs, painfully aware that she sounds like a maniac. And that the last place Flynn left his heart was where his wife and daughter were murdered. “Sorry.”

Flynn shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. He stares at her, expression carefully muffled like a silenced gunshot.

“Well, I just wanted to check in. See how you were doing. And, oh, Rufus and Jiya noticed some things were missing around the bunker. Maybe you’ve seen them?”

“What types of things?”

“Um, they mentioned some screwdrivers and one of the knives from the kitchen. And Rufus’s multi-tool.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Flynn says, clenching and unclenching his hands where they hang between his knees. 

“Okay, cool. Thanks. I’d really appreciate it.”

Lucy waits a beat, but Flynn just _stares_ at her. “So, I’ll just be going. If you ever want to talk or anything, I’m usually camped out in the kitchen at one of the tables. Or the common area. Or mine and Jiya’s room. Just so you—just so you know, you know?”

With that, Lucy books it out of Flynn’s room, her heart hammering in her chest. She only just stops the door from slamming closed behind her, then leans against it for some much needed support.

Why is it so difficult to talk to him now that he’s on their side? When they were working against each other, they still managed not to be awkward around one another. Is it Lucy? Some lingering effect of her time held hostage by her mother? Or is it Flynn, completely broken after six months spent in solitary confinement?

Lucy takes a deep, shuddering breath and pushes herself away from the door.

Back to her table in the kitchen. Back to her dust covered books and her notebook. Back to burying herself in her work. Just like she’s always done to nurse an aching, lonely heart.

Just like her mother raised her.

 

Lucy sits on the lumpy couch in the common area, her glass of Crystal Lite mixed with vodka leaning against her side like a lover. At almost three in the morning, the bunker is dark except for the flicker of the television, playing from a collection of black and white movies. 

Lucy isn’t watching, not really. Her eyes stare in the direction of the screen, but she’s in something like a meditative state, her mind nothing more than snow on a television—the closest she gets to sleep, sometimes. 

Footsteps shuffle behind her, startling Lucy back to the present. Careful not to spill her drink, she twists around to see a tall figure lurking in the kitchen.

“Flynn?”

“Lucy.” His voice is soft, blanketed by shadow, accent slightly stronger than usual.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks.

Flynn shakes his head. 

Lucy smiles, not in jest, but in commiseration. “Yeah, me either. Want to sit?”

She pats the couch next to her, but Flynn shakes his head again.

He turns, reaching for the fridge. He must have deliberately made noise so he wouldn’t frighten her with the pull of the fridge door. He’s so tall he has to bend nearly double see into the fridge. He straightens again, holding the gallon jug of milk.

He doesn’t say anything as Lucy watches him pour himself a bowl of cereal. Nor does he say anything when he turns to lean on the kitchen counter, choosing instead to eat his cereal in noisy silence. 

Lucy untwists, going back to staring at her movie. She takes a long drink from her cup, the back of her head on fire. Is Flynn still staring at her? Or is Lucy just imagining things?

It doesn’t take Flynn long to finish his meal. Once the crunching stops, the sink runs as Flynn washes the bowl and spoon. The cabinet opens as Flynn puts away the bowl, followed by the utensil drawer as the spoon is also put away.

Silence.

Lucy manages to continue looking forward for all of two minutes before she turns back around.

Flynn is gone.

The next day, Jiya finds the ‘ _one_ good knife’ in the drawer with the rest of the utensils.

Rufus finds his multi-tool in the box of cereal.

The screwdrivers are each found scattered throughout the bunker in exceedingly strange places: the refrigerator, one of the shower stalls, inside Denise’s basket of knitting.

Lucy smiles at her teammates’ confusion and pretends not to have seen anything, claiming to have fallen asleep during The Count of Monte Cristo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew. sorry for the late update. i started a new job and i'm mostly moved out of my old apartment and mostly moved into my new apartment and all around things have been a little bonkers.
> 
> next time: with wyatt still missing, flynn goes on his first mission with the gang


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick warning: if vomit makes you feel icky, once you see the word 'green,' skip down a few paragraphs until Lucy says 'Be careful,' and you should be okay. :)
> 
> also, a note that i update the tags periodically. for this chapter, i added "disordered eating," but it's a continuation from previous chapters of Flynn not eating. he'll get better, i promise, but if that's something that makes you uncomfortable, please be forewarned.

The alarm blares, echoing against the the metallic enclosure of the bunker. 

Lucy’s heart sinks.

Rittenhouse has jumped.

Rufus and Jiya, having both been cuddled up on the common room couch, quietly talking and teasing one another in a way that makes Lucy _ache_ , spring into action. They run toward the Lifeboat computers. The sit down at their respective monitors, fingers flying over keyboards, running programs that send data down the surrounding monitors like the rush of water over a fall. 

Lucy doesn’t have to wait long for Rufus to look up, but before he says anything, his eyes go to something behind Lucy and his lips turn down in a frown.

Lucy turns her head to see Flynn standing behind her. He raises his brow but doesn’t offer any other greeting.

Should she be worried she hadn’t heard him approach? And _how_ does a man that tall manage not to make any noise when he walks?

Lucy looks at Rufus. They don’t have time for her to contemplate Flynn’s cat-like stealth. “Rufus?”

Rufus shakes his head. “Right. Rittenhouse. Looks like the Mothership just landed in Salem, Massachusetts. September 22, 1962.”

“The witch trials,” Flynn rumbles from behind her.

Lucy raises her brows at him. 

Flynn shrugs. 

“Wait,” Jiya says. “ _That_ Salem-Salem?”

“What do you know about the witch trials?” Rufus asks Flynn. “You burn a few witches in your day?”

Expression dark, Flynn meets Rufus’s stare with his own. “Witches weren’t burned in Salem. They were hanged. Of the accused, only those who weren’t willing to confess to practicing witchcraft were executed. And it all came to a head on the 22nd, when eight innocent souls were hanged from the same tree. One by one.”

Rufus and Jiya look at Lucy, as if to confirm everything Flynn says is true. 

“He’s right,” Lucy says.

Rufus frowns. “Great. He’s seen The Crucible.”

Jiya rolls her eyes in fond exasperation. “You guys get going. I’ll contact Denise, let her know you jumped.”

“I’m going to need a weapon,” Flynn says, following the others toward the Lifeboat. 

“No,” Rufus says. “Not a chance.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says. “Denise—“

Flynn growls, coming to a halt. “Agent Christopher isn’t here. You needed a soldier? Well, here I am. But what good is a soldier without a weapon, huh? What good am I going to be against a Rittenhouse sleeper agent with one hand tied behind my back? Why bring me along if you can’t trust me to protect you?”

“You haven’t really been in the business of protecting us before,” Rufus says, stopping just short of the ladder. He gestures down at himself. “Remember when you got me shot? Yeah? Fun times.”

Flynn shakes his head. He looks at Lucy, something in his expression pleading.

“I trust you,” Lucy says. “I do. But it’s not as if we keep weapons lying around. I don’t have anything to give you.”

She doesn’t add that Flynn, in his late night explorations, would have found something if they kept weapons unattended in the bunker.

Flynn breathes out through his nose. “Fine. And clothes?”

“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Lucy says.

Rufus climbs up the ladder into the Lifeboat first, grumbling about leaving his back exposed. Lucy climbs in next, listening for Flynn’s heavy steps on the ladder behind her. Once inside, she takes her usual seat.

Flynn sits across from her, long legs pulled in, making him looks small and cramped, and fiddles with the seat belt, pulling at the straps to make them long enough to fit his taller frame. 

Are his fingers trembling or is Lucy just imagining things?

Flynn sees her looking and clips in the belt. He grins at her. “See? No problems.”

“Just a warning,” Rufus says as he initiates the Lifeboat systems. “First time flyers can get a little queasy.”

“Not my first trip,” Flynn says. 

“Yeah, well, this isn’t the Mothership.” Rufus doesn’t look back at Flynn as he talks. “Coach sucks.”

 

Lucy screws her eyes shut during the actual jump through time. She’s learned that while it might not completely stave away the usual nausea, it does manage the worst of it.

When she opens her eyes, Flynn is green.

Rufus sees it, too, and leaps to release the seals on the door. It swings open after precious seconds, during which a shaky Flynn releases the straps of his harness. He ducks through the opening and stumbles out of the Lifeboat, ending up on his hands and knees in the grass, retching.

Lucy and Rufus share a knowing look and a shrug before following Flynn out into the Salem, Massachusetts of 1962.

Lucy winces in sympathy as Flynn throws up the contents of his stomach. By the amount of dry heaving he does, it’s obvious there wasn’t much to throw up to begin with. 

Rufus makes a face and turns away, looking a little green around the edges. “Look, I’m a sympathy puker. I’m gonna go see about getting us some clothes before I _also_ lose my lunch.”

“Be careful,” Lucy says. “These are dangerous times.”

“Yeah, I know, especially if you look like me.” Rufus waves as he hurries off, not looking back.

Flynn falls back onto his ass, wiping at his mouth with the long sleeve of his shirt. 

“You okay?” Lucy kneels down, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Flynn knocks her hand away. “I’m fine.”

Lucy frowns. She bites down on the reflexive urge to tell him off. Instead, she climbs into the Lifeboat and rummages around through their emergency supplies, pulling out a bottle of water. Once back into the open, Lucy unscrews the cap and hands the bottle to him.

Flynn looks at her for a long second before taking it. He swishes a mouthful of the water and spits it into the grass. He takes a slower, easier sip and swallows. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not—“

He makes a frustrated gesture at himself, but doesn’t elaborate.

_—used to being touched_ , she finishes for herself.

Lucy, when she was captured by Rittenhouse, had the opposite problem. For the six months she spent in their clutches, it was almost within their _literal_ clutches. Her mother wouldn’t _stop_ touching her. As if she could convince Lucy to join them if only she hugged her enough. Like she was making up for lost contact from when Lucy was a child. 

A tactile person in general, Lucy learned to hate being touched—at least when it came to her mother. She hadn’t had any problem with Wyatt or with Rufus or Jiya.

“It’s okay,” Lucy says. “I get it. I’ll try not to.”

Flynn turns conflicted eyes toward the ground, hiding his expression by taking a long swig of water. 

“At least, not without checking first?” Lucy hazards.

The corner of Flynn’s mouth goes up. He wets his lips and nods. 

Flynn finishes his water just as Rufus returns, peering around the heap of fabric in his arms.

“Everything good?” Rufus asks. He drops the pile of clothing onto the grass.

Lucy separates out the dress, bonnet, cloak, and boots meant for her. Rufus picks out his own clothing and nods his head for Lucy to change first. Once again, she climbs into the Lifeboat. She lifts her shirt over her head but stops when Rufus says, “Dude, what the hell?”

Lucy lets her shirt fall back into place and ducks her head outside the Lifeboat.

Flynn, without any measure of modesty, has stripped out of everything but his boxer briefs. 

Lucy’s face heats up and she almost ducks back inside, but there’s something about Flynn that keeps her rooted to the spot.

She knew Flynn was thin. She noted the protrusion of his ribs back in the prison hospital. But, she didn’t know how bad it was until now. He looks _starved_. His skin is waxy and pale, interrupted by bruises of various shades. The wound on his side is the angry red of new scar tissue. And across his body lies a map of other scars, evidence of wounds long healed over.

“Goddamn, dude,” Rufus says.

Flynn shrugs and reaches for the trousers Rufus stole for him. He steps into them, one leg at a time, doing the ties as tightly as possible to prevent them from falling off his hips.

Lucy finally shakes herself into action, quickly stripping out of her modern clothes and donning the dress over her modern underwear, because, well, _because_. She ties the cloak around her neck as she climbs out of the Lifeboat, letting Rufus have his turn.

Outside, Flynn is fully dressed, wearing all black, the thinness of his body hidden beneath a leather duster Lucy has to admit does look quite dashing on him. His arms are folded over his chest and he looks off into the distance, presumably keeping watch.

Lucy tries not to look at him, but her eyes keep going to him in her periphery.

“What?” Flynn asks, tone brusque. 

“Nothing,” Lucy says. She wraps her hair into a neat bun, then places her bonnet over it, leaving the bonnet untied. She very pointedly looks out into the distance, toward the road they’ll need to follow into Salem.

A minute later, fully dressed in his own stolen clothing, Rufus descends from the Lifeboat. “You two, ah, ready?”

Lucy catches Flynn’s eyes, once again noting the storm that always seems to be raging through them. “Yeah. As we’ll ever be.”

Flynn motions for them both to precede him, taking up position as the rear guard. 

Rufus gives him a nervous look, but catches up to Lucy, whose well-worn, stolen boots point them in the direction of Salem and, by extension, their mission to stop Rittenhouse—whatever it is they have planned.


	8. Chapter 8

Flynn follows behind Lucy and Rufus, trying not to vibrate out of his skin. The sky is a bright, unpolluted blue. The grass is green, stretching on into the horizon on either side of their dirt path. Before them is a thick, full forest. The landscape is beautiful, but all Flynn can think is that it will be a relief, at least, be hidden within the cover of the trees.

Since when did he develop a full-on phobia of wide, open spaces?

He holds his hands behind his back, partly to hide the trembling of his fingers, partly to make himself look as non-threatening as possible, aware that Rufus, at least, keeps looking behind him, unable to trust having Flynn at his back.

A fog rolls in as they approach the forest. Rufus and Lucy talk between themselves, heads bowed toward one another, while Flynn tries to stay present, tries to keep watch. Which is why he notices the cloaked figure walking toward them before either of his companions.

“Hey,” he says. “Hooded figure, nine o’clock.”

He expects Lucy to stop along with Rufus, but she changes course, moving toward the figure, lifting her skirt to better navigate the terrain. “Hello? Who are you?”

Forgetting himself, Rufus looks at Flynn, expression incredulous, as if to say, ‘Are you kidding me?’

“No!” Rufus calls after Lucy. “Rule number one! Don’t go _towards_ the demonic entity!”

Flynn lets the corner of his mouth turn up. “Come on. Before our intrepid leader gets herself accused.”

“I am Abby,” the figure says once she’s within earshot, still striding toward them, her boots crunching through underbrush. “Who asks?”

“I’m Lucy. This is Rufus.” Lucy hesitates, biting her lip for just a second of indecision. “And this is my, um, husband. Garcia.”

 _Garcia_.

The sound of his name sends a shiver up his spine. The last person to call him by his given name is long dead. These days, he only hears it from the mouths of ghosts.

Didn’t they use codenames on missions? They had in the past. Flynn was expecting to have to go as Isiah or another mouthful of a Puritanical name.

And...husband?

It makes sense. A woman traveling in these times would need someone with more agency, more access. She would be expected to be traveling with her husband or her father. At least she hadn’t chosen father. He may be one of the older people living in the bunker, but he’s certainly not _that_ old.

Still, something in Flynn’s chest tightens. 

He moves from his place behind Lucy to stand beside her. To complete the image, he places his arm around her lower back, close but only touching her with the tips of his fingers, his hand curled around her waist.

The look Lucy gives him isn’t the relief he expects, nor gratitude that he isn’t enjoying the charade any more than she is. Instead, she seems surprised. Possibly disappointed. She leans into his touch, completing the circuit, making his muscles jolt beneath his skin.

Flynn swallows. Between them are layers of fabric and leather and yet Flynn can still feel the warmth she exudes. It frightens him how _good_ the contact feels, how much he wants _more_.

The others continue talking while Flynn is in his head. He’s only pulled from his thoughts when Lucy breaks the contact, moving to read the note Abby has staked into what Flynn now recognizes as the hanging tree.

“I am going to speak out at the tavern. Tonight,” Abby says. “I will not forgive myself if I do not.”

“Tavern?” Rufus asks, perking up.

At this, Abby smiles. “Beer is proof God wants us to be happy.”

If Flynn still believed in a higher power, he might have agreed. Instead, he only motions for Abby to lead the way back to town and out of the forest.

 

Flynn sits down at the long tavern table with Rufus and Lucy. Before them sit three bowls of stew, each filled with hearty vegetables. Next to their bowls of stew are hunks of bread and cheese. 

Flynn’s stomach twists. At the same time, his mouth waters.

He hasn’t eaten anything but a bowl of sugary children’s cereal in the past twenty-four hours.

“Eat slow,” Lucy says, leaning into his side. “Stop if you can’t eat anymore, but you _have_ to eat something.”

Flynn frowns. 

“Please, Flynn?”

Flynn picks up the bread and dunks it into the stew. It’s a dry, crusty bread, and Flynn uses it to scoop up some of the vegetables along with the broth. Following Lucy’s suggestion, he eats slowly, sipping at the broth, chewing each mouthful fully before swallowing.

His shrunken stomach can only manage a few spoonfuls, however, before he has to push the rest of the stew away.

Beside him, Lucy hides her frown behind a spoonful of her own stew. Rufus, on the other side of Lucy, doesn’t bother to hide his stare.

Flynn pushes himself to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Lucy asks, eyes brimming with worry.

“You’re not going to throw up again, are you?” Rufus asks, making a face.

“Gonna look for a weapon. Gotta be more than a butter knife in this godforsaken place.”

Rufus looks at Lucy, expression pleading for her to make Flynn heel, like Flynn is nothing more than a misbehaving mongrel.

“Ok,” Lucy says. “Just don’t go too far. They should be bringing in the accused pretty soon.”

Flynn nods.

He prowls through the tavern, keeping a sharp eye on each of the men as he passes, but not one has the tell-tale shape of a pistol beneath his coat. Not one carries a rifle on his back or resting bedside him against the bar. No knives sharper than those used to eat dinner lay on any of the tables.

Fucking Puritans.

As he moves through the crowded space, people jostle him from all sides. It’s louder in the tavern than it ever was in his cell, than it ever happens to get inside the bunker, even when Rufus and Jiya argue the merits of Star Trek versus Star Wars within earshot of Flynn’s room. 

Flynn pulls at his collar. The air around him has gotten overly warm, overly stale. 

Flynn manages to find a wall. He puts his back to it, staring out into the tavern with wide eyes. The accused stand in a line, shackles on their wrists. It’s impossible to hear the clank of the metal over the din of the crowd, but the sound resonates within Flynn, making him vibrate down to his bones.

His skin is too tight. He’s breathing too hard. His knees have gone weak, but before he can drop, both his arms are gripped tight on either side of him by strong pairs of hands.

Flynn looks down. Only Lucy and Rufus, both looking at him with a measure of the panic already making his heart pound. He forces himself to stand down, forces himself not to struggle. Teammates. They are his teammates, now.

“Air,” he manages.

“Not yet,” Lucy says. “Just hold on a little longer, okay? Hold on.”

Abby is yelling over the crowd, but Flynn doesn’t have the energy to translate. He’s vaguely aware that something unexpected is happening, something he should be focusing on, something related to their mission, but it’s all he can do to drag oxygen into his lungs.

Finally, Abby—Abiah?—is dragged out of the tavern along with the accused.

They stay where they are until the crowd dies down, until the spectacle is completely over. Only then do Rufus and Lucy drag Flynn out of the tavern, Rufus explaining to those caught staring, “Don’t mind us. Poor guy had just a bit too much to drink, is all.”

They get as far as the nearest barn before Flynn crumples. He shrugs off both Lucy and Rufus, the contact getting to be too much for him to process. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“You are, like, the exact opposite of fine,” Rufus says. He turns to Lucy. “Should we have even brought him on this mission? Dude is seriously fucked up. And not _just_ in the murder-y sense.”

Flynn leans against the wall of the barn, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “I just need a minute.”

They give him his minute, after which Flynn asks, “What happened in there?”

“We could ask the same of you,” Rufus says, arms crossed over his chest. He’s frowning, but not the same way he’s frowned at Flynn since the beginning. Instead of distrust, Flynn notes something like worry. 

Flynn sighs and lets the back of his head thud against the wall. He wets his lips. How does he even begin to explain?

“Prison,” Lucy says. “Prison happened to him.”

Flynn spares Lucy a grateful smile, though it twists his lips into something more like a grimace.

Rufus frowns at Flynn. “Man. I hate that I feel sorry for you.”

“Don’t go out of your way on my account,” Flynn says. “Though, I am starting to regret having you shot.”

“Only _starting_ to?” 

“Guys, guys,” Lucy says. “We still need to stop Rittenhouse.”

Lucy fills Flynn in on what he missed, explaining how Abby is Abiah Franklin, future mother to Benjamin Franklin. Flynn doesn’t have to rely on his own research on the Witch Trials to know Abiah Franklin was not one of the original women accused. 

“Rittenhouse is going after free speech,” he concludes.

Lucy nods. “Ben Franklin made it okay for us to criticize the people in charge. If Abby is hanged, Franklin is never born, and Rittenhouse is one step closer to tyranny.”

“That’s just great,” Rufus says. “No pressure or anything. Just the entire First Amendment on the line.”

“We’ve gone up against worse,” Lucy reminds him. 

Flynn is unexpectedly grateful she doesn’t look at him when she says it, though it’s obvious _he_ is what she means when she says ‘worse.’

“So, where do we go from here?” Rufus asks. “Beside rescuing Ben Franklin’s mom, I mean?”

Flynn pushes himself to his feet with a groan. Has he ever been this exhausted in his life? 

“We can’t leave until the Rittenhouse agent has been neutralized.”

“So, we split up,” Lucy says. “Rufus, how do you feel about staking out the jail? See if there’s any way we can break Abby out?”

Rufus shrugs, glancing at Flynn. He looks at Lucy, an entire conversation happening between them without words.

“Ok, yeah,” Rufus says. “Puritanical engineering—shouldn’t be too hard to crack. You guys have any idea where to start looking for the sleeper agent?”

Lucy nods. “Abby’s sister, Bathsheba. She was one of the most outspoken accusers in Salem. She might know something.”

“Just make sure she doesn’t accuse _you_ , while you’re at it,” Rufus says, going for humor, perhaps. It falls flat, all of them aware that if Rittenhouse can have Abby Franklin accused, Lucy, a strange woman traveling with equally strange men, would undoubtedly be an easy target.

Not that Flynn would allow anyone to lay a finger on Lucy, of course.

“Don’t worry.” Lucy turns to smile at Flynn, as if she can hear his thoughts. “I’ll have backup.”

“Right,” Rufus says, drawing out the word in disbelief. But even as he says it, he nods at Flynn who nods back. A silent promise to keep Lucy safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m back! i took a week off to go to vegas with my bff and i’m soooo tired, but it was soooo fun! so, if you see any glaring errors, it’s because i still haven’t recovered from hiking in the desert and jet lag and all that good stuff! 
> 
> anyway! i’m glad to be back to working on this monster. thanks for reading!!


	9. Chapter 9

The walk to Bathsheba’s house is quiet, with Lucy taking the lead and Flynn walking just slightly behind her.

Lucy is used to having Wyatt and Rufus beside her, standing with her as equals. What does it say that Flynn insists on walking behind the group? Lucy has tried to slow down, to allow him to catch up, but either consciously or unconsciously, Flynn will also slow, allowing Lucy to stay ahead of him. 

“You don’t have to walk behind me,” Lucy says, finally breaking the silence. 

Flynn looks over her head, scanning the open field surrounding them. Then, after a brief roll of his shoulders Lucy interprets as a shrug, lengthens his strides until he is beside her. He cocks his head to the side, a silent question in his eyes, ‘There, happy?’

“How are you feeling?” Lucy asks, after another minute of silence.

Flynn’s face twists. “Is this going to be a _thing_?”

“A thing?”

“One little breakdown and now you’re asking me how I feel. I thought you were a historian, Dr. Preston. Not a shrink.”

Lucy looks at him, refusing to back down. “I don’t have to be a therapist to know you’re avoiding the question, Flynn.”

Flynn ducks his head. “You’re very different than I remember you. It could just be the six months I was locked in solitary, but you seem...more confident. Less...afraid.”

Lucy doesn’t point out he’s _still_ avoiding her question. Better to let it go for now. 

“Yeah, well, I was a prisoner, too. For the first two months or so, they had to keep me locked in a closet, so I couldn’t escape.”

Flynn lifts his brow, encouraging her to continue.

“My mother—she wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, not directly, but she wasn’t above punishing me to get me to see reason. Eventually, I managed to convince them I was willing to join the cause, however reluctantly. I kept expecting to hear from Rufus and Wyatt, but nothing ever came. I thought they were all dead, that I was the only one left. So, I figured it was up to me to stop Rittenhouse, even if it cost me my life.”

Lucy waits for an answer, but Flynn only frowns and wets his lips. 

“I’m pretty sure no one told you this,” she continues, “but I planned to blow up the Mothership. With all of us inside—my mother, Emma, and me. The only reason I didn’t was Rufus and Wyatt. They managed to repair the Life Boat after the explosion and follow us—just in time to stop me and rescue me.”

Flynn doesn’t say anything, his brows drawn down. 

After a full minute of silence, Flynn looks up, squinting into the distance against the afternoon sun. “Open spaces...make me nervous.”

Lucy manages to hold back her laughter—not at him, but at the exact Flynn-ness with which he’s chosen to answer her earlier question.

“That’s...understandable,” she says, keeping her tone carefully even, lest he clam up on her again. 

“Is it?” he asks, throwing her a sidelong glance. “Because, sometimes, all I want is to be back in that cell.”

Lucy can’t imagine his situation, not when hers was so different. She was allowed to leave her closet-prison for bathroom breaks and meal times, as long as she was properly supervised. Her mother visited often, when she wasn’t attending to Rittenhouse business. Lucy was allowed books to entertain her and walks around the compound to stretch her legs.

She can understand his feelings, however. Flynn’s cell was all he knew for six entire months. All his choices were stripped from him, his free will. Compared to his cell, the outside world must feel chaotic, out of control.

Lucy can’t tell him everything will be okay, because she doesn’t know that it will be. Instead, she brushes her fingers over the leather sleeve of his duster until she finds his hand. When he doesn’t pull away—only glancing at her with wide-eyed surprise—Lucy squeezes his fingers with a small smile. She lets his hand fall away and continues toward the house in the distance, Flynn walking beside her.

 

Flynn stands in the middle of an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar time, certain of only one thing.

The Puritan is _lying_.

The man stokes a fire that needs no stoking and Flynn counts at least three separate tells as he says, “A hunter? No, sir. I’m a God-fearing man. I haven’t touched a gun in years.”

A weapon. A hunting rifle, surely. Hidden somewhere in the house. But, where? And how can Flynn slip away long enough to get at it?

“We were hoping to talk to you and your wife, together,” Lucy says, giving Flynn a look that says she knows where his head is at and would prefer it if he were to focus on the task at hand, please and thank you.

“Bathsheba, was it?” Flynn asks, clenching his fists. He pastes on a polite smile. “Strong name.”

Happy to change the subject from the rifle he _must_ have hidden upstairs—the bedroom, Flynn is almost certain, under the bed or beneath the floorboards—the Puritan man smiles. “She’s a strong woman. Ah, and here she is now.”

Bathsheba doesn’t smile at her guests as she comes to stand beside her husband. “You journeyed from Boston?”

“That’s right,” Lucy says.

“The trials,” Bathsheba guesses.

“Reverend Willis sent us. From the Old South Church.”

“I see.” Bathsheba frowns. “Joseph told me just this day that my own sister is among the accused. A blessing, if not for my sister, but for our village to be free from those practicing the dark arts.”

Something in the line of Lucy’s shoulders shifts. “Cut the crap, Bathsheba.” 

Both Puritans look at Lucy with wide-eyed shock. Then, as one, they look at Flynn. Flynn doesn’t bother hiding his smile, letting it twist his face into something ugly. 

“You’ve been making up lies,” Lucy continues. “Accusing women of witchcraft. Like Martha Corey, your neighbor. You got into a property dispute and that’s why you accused her, isn't it?”

“I don’t know who you are or how you think you could know such things,” Bathsheba says, and points toward the door, “but, I think it’s time you leave our house.”

“How did they get you to do it?” Lucy stands up, but makes no move toward the door. “How did they get you to accuse Abby? Did they bribe you? Threaten you? How?”

Joseph, the husband, finally steps forward. “You really must leave. Now.”

Lucy turns, but only to look at Flynn. She raises one brow and tilts her head toward Joseph.

Flynn grins.

 _Finally_.

Flynn stalks forward, grabbing Joseph by the shirt and lifting him into the air. “Tell us what you know.”

“No!” Bathsheba grips at Flynn’s arm. “Let him go!”

When Joseph only gapes at Flynn like a goldfish, Flynn throws the man across the room.

With a _crash_ , Joseph lands on a table, crushing it to piece beneath him.

Flynn strides toward the downed man. Bending forward, he grips Joseph again by the front of his shirt. He pulls back a clenched fist and—

“Stop,” Bathsheba says, all composure lost. “Stop! I’ve accused women, it’s true, but not Abby. Never Abby. Whoever it was who accused her, I do not know. I swear it.”

Flynn looks at Lucy.

Lucy shakes her head.

Flynn gives Joseph one last grin before letting go of his shirt. As an extra measure, Flynn even straightens the poor man’s collar.

Bathsheba goes to her husband as soon as Flynn moves away, glaring at Lucy and Flynn.

“Sorry,” Lucy says. “Truly, I am.”

Lucy picks up her skirts and ducks out of the house. Flynn follows, eyeing the upstairs and the weapon hidden there as he goes, something like warning churning in his gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, sorry it took me so long to get this chapter out. excuses, excuses, i know, but my mom just had surgery and i’ve been sitting with her for the last week. crossing my fingers to have the next chapter out sooner and that i find some sort of regular schedule.
> 
> thank you so much for reading and i promise to reply to comments at some point, but just know each and every one of them sustains me and gives me life!


	10. Chapter 10

The tavern is once again full as the sun hangs heavy in the sky, casting a deep, fiery orange over the village of Salem and its surrounding forests. Morbid celebration fills the air as villagers count down the hours until nine of their own are put to death.

Flynn frowns at them all over a pint of beer. It’s warm and nowhere near refreshing, but in these primitive times, water is almost certainly out of the question.

Beside him, Lucy asks Rufus what he found at the jailhouse.

“Nothing.”

Flynn raises his brows. “Nothing? Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”

Rufus, to his credit, rolls his eyes. “I meant nothing that wouldn’t _also_ get us arrested and possibly hanged. It’s too open—someone would see us. There are dudes patrolling the place, constantly. And we can’t wait until night falls, because, oh, yeah, that’s when they’re going to hang everybody.”

Lucy reaches out for both Rufus and Flynn’s arms, squeezing their wrists in warning. 

Rufus ducks his head, chastened. “So, now what?”

“My vote is bloodbath,” Flynn says into his beer.

Rufus flinches, but Lucy meets Flynn’s gaze, clearly asking him to explain.

“I pick off the bad guys from the forest, draw them my way. While their attention is diverted, you and Rufus rescue Abby. All I need is a weapon.”

Lucy frowns, doing mental calculations, tallying up pros and cons of murder. Another way in which this Lucy differs from the one he knew six months ago. Another way in which she is beginning to resemble the Lucy he thought he knew from her journal.

Rufus frowns, too, his brown eyes conflicted. “I can’t believe you’re even considering going with ‘bloodbath.’ Seriously, Lucy. You can’t be siding with this lunatic.”

Flynn holds up a finger while leaning forward to peer around Lucy at Rufus. “Ah, this _lunatic_ is on your side now. And, if you’ve got a better idea, now would be—“

Rufus’s brows furrow. “Now would be—what?”

Flynn’s eyes are on the door where a posse of six men have entered the tavern. Everything about them is rough: their clothing, their faces, their demeanor. They look toward Lucy, Rufus, and Flynn and, with nods all around to confirm their targets, stalk toward the table.

“Uh, guys,” Rufus says, having followed Flynn’s gaze. “We gotta go.”

Lucy and Rufus stand, but Flynn doesn’t move.

He’s not in the tavern anymore. He’s not even in 1692. He’s on a sidewalk in a crowded park in 2016. The men converging on him are dressed in tailored black suits. They’re armed with semi automatic pistols, each one aimed at Flynn’s heart.

One of the men grabs for his arm and Flynn shakes it off. He backs up, barely breathing, with only one thought in his head.

_Run._

 

Flynn stares unseeing at the men coming toward them, his eyes wide. 

Rufus pulls at Lucy, but Lucy refuses to go, refuses to leave Flynn behind.

She tugs at Flynn’s arm, hoping to snap him out of whatever trance he seems to have fallen into. At first, nothing. But then, Flynn looks at Lucy, stormy eyes still blank, still somewhere else completely, and he throws her off of him, sending her stumbling into Rufus.

Flynn runs, then. Tearing across the tavern, he collides with several startled villagers. He shoves his way through to the kitchen and nearly dives through the door in his haste to get away.

Lucy and Rufus also run, but neither gets far before they’re surrounded. Three of the men grab at Lucy’s arms, wrestling them behind her. Beside her Rufus suffers much the same fate.

“We just wanted to talk,” says one of the men, his breath hot in Lucy’s ear. “Too bad your husband ran away. Doesn’t look too good, does it?”

“Doesn’t look good for what?” Lucy asks, struggling to get away. “We’re nobody—just good Christians from the Old South Church! Father Willard sent us!”

“Father Willard never sent them,” a familiar voice calls over the crowd. “Lucy and the two men she travels with are witches! They’ve come to Salem to do Satan’s bidding!”

Carol Preston points an accusing finger toward Lucy, her face carefully arranged to give away nothing. Her eyes plead with Lucy, however. They say, ‘See what you made me do? See what could have been avoided if you’d just given up and joined the cause?’

Beside her, Rufus murmurs, “You think Flynn went back to the Lifeboat?”

“No,” Lucy says, eyes still on her mother, the pit of her stomach burning with betrayal. Finally, she tears her gaze from Carol Preston. “No, you didn’t see him. He panicked, I think. Like before. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here.”

“He’ll come back for us, right? I mean, unless he’s figured out how to pilot the Lifeboat, he’s got to. Right?”

The men holding Lucy jostle her as they march her out of the tavern. “He will. I know he will.”

 

Flynn comes back to himself with all the force of a speeding truck.

He’s running. Out of breath, legs and lungs burning, but still running. Sweat pours down his face. His hair is drenched with it. It drips into his eyes, blinding him with the sting of salt.

Flynn slows to a halt, gasping. He doubles over, hands on his knees, as he sucks in air. He wipes uselessly at the sweat on his forehead, the leather sleeve of his duster doing nothing to absorb it.

“Fuck.”

Flynn straightens, but bends over again almost instantly, hands gripping his hair. “Fuck!”

He left them. His teammates. Lucy and Rufus trusted him to protect them, to be their soldier, and he left them behind to be captured by fucking Rittenhouse and a handful of fucking unarmed Puritans.

How could he let this happen? How could he be so weak? So useless?

Agent Christopher might as well throw him back in prison the second they return to the present.

 _If_ they return to the present. If he hasn’t already sentenced his teammates to hang to death along with the rest of the accused. 

_No._

Flynn straightens again, allowing his fury to ignite. Like an incandescent flower, it blooms behind his ribcage, where it burns white-hot. He allows himself to bask in its familiar glow, for just a moment. Allows himself to take comfort in his own molten rage. 

He’ll hang himself before he lets Rittenhouse win.

He peers through the dense canopy of trees. The sun is nothing but a sliver of orange over the village of Salem. It will be dark soon. The accused will be hanged in no more than a handful of hours, Lucy and Rufus among them.

Flynn runs a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face, and lets his expression settle into something grim. “Bloodbath it is.”

 

Flynn kicks in the front door to Bathsheba’s house. He strides across the small living space, getting as far as the stairwell before Joseph runs in and, arms outstretched, blocks the way. 

“Move,” Flynn says through gritted teeth.

“You must leave, sir. My wife, she’s unwell. You mustn’t disturb her sleep.”

“Move,” Flynn says again, the word no more than a growl, low and dangerous.

“Her sister! Her sister is about to be hanged. Please, her nerves cannot handle—“

“Joseph?” Bathsheba calls from the top of the stairs. 

“Go back to sleep,” Joseph calls back. “The gentleman was just leaving.”

“Not without that rifle,” Flynn says.

“I d-don’t—“

Flynn towers over the other man, using every inch of his 6’ 4” frame to his advantage. “Don’t _lie_ to me.” 

“Please, sir, if I—if I give it to you, d-do you promise not to harm my family?”

Flynn flinches, hit in the chest with a wave of icy remorse, his fury all but extinguished.

He swallows, shifting away from Joseph, standing down. “I promise.”

Joseph searches Flynn’s face for a long minute. Perhaps finding what he was looking for, perhaps finding nothing at all, he drops his arms, turns, and trudges up the stairs.

He returns, carrying the rifle. He holds it out at arm’s length, his entire being coiled like a spring, ready to run back up the stairs should Flynn go back on his word. Unarmed yet ready to protect his wife against the madman who broke into his home.

Before, Flynn would have called Joseph a coward. Now, Flynn grits his teeth against the echo of two silenced gunshots and the knowledge that he should have done _more_ to protect his girls.

“You’re a good man,” Flynn says, taking the rifle and slinging it over his shoulder.

Joseph doesn’t say anything, only watches as Flynn nods his thanks, turns, and strides away.

 

Flynn digs a groove into the soft underbrush behind the cover of a large tree. He lays down on his belly in the dirt, rifle at the ready, the hanging tree within his sights, and waits.

 

Flynn blinks only to find the forest lit by torchlight. The villagers of Salem have assembled around the hanging tree. They chatter amongst themselves, voices laden with self-righteous piety and macabre excitement as they await the evening’s main event.

Did he fall asleep? Or did he black out again?

Is there a difference?

Flynn shakes his head. He forces himself to focus. To breathe.

He’ll have time to dwell on his frightening new aptitude for losing time later. After he’s saved Lucy and Rufus. After he’s made sure they all return to a present where the First Amendment still exists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure i'm super happy with this chapter, but i'm posting it anyway! i hope you enjoy!
> 
> thanks to everyone who commented and a special thanks to those who wished my mom well after surgery! ya'll are the best!


	11. Chapter 11

Lucy, hands bound behind her, listens half-heartedly as the judge repeats the list of the charges against her, Rufus, and the rest of the accused. 

Carol Preston’s words from hours ago, as she passed a knife through the slots in Lucy’s cell, still ring in Lucy’s ears.

“A show of faith,” she said. “That’s all I’m asking. Do that and I’ll take you back home, make sure you don’t face anymore punishment for this little lapse.”

She looked at Abby Franklin and back at Lucy, making her ultimatum clear:

Kill Abby and be rescued by her mother or die with the rest of the accused.

Now, Lucy saws at the bindings around her wrists as she watches as Abby Franklin is led to the hanging tree. It threatens to slip from her hands, her palms damp with sweat and fingers trembling with adrenaline-laced fear. Lucy grips the knife tighter as Abby ascends the stairs onto the platform, one by one, careful not to stumble with her own arms bound behind her.

Once in place, Abby holds her head high, her eyes hard as she stares into a crowd made up of people she’d once called her friends and neighbors.

“Do you want me to try?” Rufus asks, leaning close to whisper in Lucy’s ear.

Rufus turns so their backs are facing one another. His fingers fumble around the hilt of the knife, nearly dropping it in his haste. 

“Careful,” Lucy says. Although, at this point, when it looks as if Flynn is not actually coming to their rescue, Lucy wouldn’t mind losing a couple of fingers if it meant keeping the rest of her life.

“Sorry. You’d think we’d have—fuck, what did Flynn call it?—a protocol for this kind of thing by now. A backup plan for what to do when we get captured. Because we, somehow, always, _inevitably_ , end up tied up.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy watches as the noose is placed over Abby’s head. Abby closes her eyes and mouths a silent prayer.

_Crack!_

The crowd screams. 

Abby opens her eyes. Still standing on the platform, the noose still around her neck, the rope slack, the trapdoor still in place.

One of the judges lays on the ground, his hand pressed to his leg. He pulls his hand away only for it to come away slick with blood.

“Witchcraft!” yells someone in the crowd.

Another _crack_!

Another judge falls.

This time, the crowd dissolves into chaos. Villagers run in every direction, some back into town, toward their homes, some deeper into the forest. Anywhere to get away.

“Flynn!” Rufus yells over the din, voice giddy with his relief. He clears his throat. “I mean, Flynn. He came back.”

“I told you he would,” Lucy says, unable to keep relief out of her own voice. “Hurry up with those ropes. We’ve got to get everyone somewhere safe.”

“I thought—“

“I know. But I can’t just sit by and watch innocent people die. Not anymore.”

Her bonds come lose just as another _crack_ splits the air. Lucy rubs at the skin around her wrists, wincing at the blisters already formed there. She takes the knife from Rufus and cuts through the ropes binding his wrists. 

Lucy makes short work freeing the rest of the accused. They shower her with thank-yous and bless-yous until the entire group is free. They huddle together, not knowing where to go, where to flee. Not when Salem is no longer safe for them.

“Wait here,” Lucy says. “Stay down. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to go.”

She exchanges a quick glance at Rufus, who nods and places himself between the women and the rest of the chaos. 

Lucy dashes toward Abby, who looks upon the crowd with the satisfied look of someone who believes divine justice to have just been wrought. She utters what appears to be another prayer, her eyes turned up to the sky.

As she runs, Lucy spots a man running toward Abby, a modern pistol held in his hand.

“Flynn!” Lucy yells.

With another _crack_ , the man goes down.

With no idea where the shots are coming from, Lucy raises a hand in thanks and continues running.

 

From his sniper’s nest, Flynn goes through the complicated process of reloading a 17th century rifle. As he does so, Flynn keeps one eye on Lucy, tracking her movements through the crowd, watching as she hikes up her skirts to run up the stairs onto the hanging platform. She cuts through the ropes binding Abby Franklin’s hands behind her back and helps the other woman to loosen the noose around her neck, to slip out from under it, and to toss it away from them.

Another man—Rittenhouse, by his gait, clearly uncomfortable in his Puritanical clothing—stalks toward Lucy and Abby. Flynn lifts the rifle, aiming it at the man’s heart. With the rifle’s poor aim he’ll be lucky to hit the man in the arm. 

He lets out a breath, braces himself, and has only put the barest amount of pressure on the trigger when four men converge on his hiding spot.

Flynn turns the rifle on one of his attackers, shooting him almost point blank in the chest. Blood flies as the man falls backward, splattering Flynn’s face and clothing.

Flynn doesn’t give the remaining men time to recover. The rifle empty and all but useless, Flynn throws it like a javelin at the man closest to him. The man ducks, laughing as he rights himself at Flynn’s desperate attempt at an attack. Flynn, having thrown the gun as a distraction, stops the man laughing with a right hook to his jaw.

The lights go out in the man’s eyes and he crumples. One hit KO.

Flynn grins and delivers a kick to the man who thought he could sneak up on Flynn from behind. Flynn ducks as the remaining man throws a quick jab, followed by a straight. Grabbing the man’s arm, Flynn sidesteps, twisting it behind the man until he yelps. Using the painful angle of the man’s arm, Flynn pushes the man to his knees.

The man curses, spittle flying as he questions the respectability of Flynn’s mother and the circumstances of his birth.

With a savage grin, Flynn shatters the man’s arm.

The third attacker, the man whom Flynn kicked, staggers back to his feet. Seeing his colleague howling in pain, huddled in the fetal position, he hesitates. He takes in Flynn’s bloodstained face and his expression of manic, monstrous glee.

Half a second later, the man turns and runs deeper into the forest.

_Coward_.

Flynn lets him go. 

His eyes go back to the platform, back toward Lucy.

She leads Abby Franklin toward the huddle of accused witches, a knife—when did she get a knife?—in her hand. With her other hand, Lucy clutches at her opposite shoulder, her fingers wet with blood.

Flynn’s vision goes red, followed by flashes of memory.

His family’s home. Water trickling over his hand from a squirt gun. The curl of Iris’s hair. Lorena’s smile. Two, silenced gunshots. Blood, rapidly staining pristine white sheets a bright, arterial red.

Flynn shakes his head. Breathes. Focuses.

And runs into the fray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anddddd we're almost at the end of the salem witch trials. phew!
> 
> this chapter was a little shorter, but there was a lot of action, and i felt like this was a good place to stop. plus, that leaves wayyy more opportunity next chapter for flynn to take care of our lucy as she comes down with that nasty infection from getting sliced with a 17th century knife. i dunno about you, but i'm excited for some sickfic :D
> 
> thank you again to everyone who has left a kudos or a comment! you all rock!


	12. Chapter 12

Clutching both the knife and her bleeding shoulder, Lucy trips over her skirts as she leads Abby back to their group. Abby reaches out, righting her before Lucy can stumble. Lucy shoots her a grateful smile.

“What now?” Rufus asks, as soon as they are within earshot. His eyes go wide as they come more fully into view. “Holy shit! Are you bleeding?”

“It’s fine,” Lucy says. “Just a scratch. Come on, we’ve got to get these women out of Salem.”

“And go where?” Abby asks.

“New Hampshire. You should be safe there. Next year, come back to Boston—there will be more people with open minds. But, for now, all of you need to stay away from Salem.”

“What about Flynn?” Rufus asks.

“I don’t know. The gun—how long since he last fired? I can’t—I was distracted, but it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Lucy’s blood freezes. What if something happened to Flynn? They don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to bringing new people along for their trips. Maybe they’re cursed, maybe—

One of the older women covers her mouth as she gasps. She presses her hands together in prayer, her face drained of all color.

Lucy follows the woman’s gaze to see Flynn striding toward them. His face is splattered with blood. His dark hair looks damp—with either blood or sweat, Lucy can’t tell. With his leather duster flapping behind him after each purposeful stride, with his deep frown and the lightning flashing in his blue eyes, it looks as if Satan himself has just materialized out of the darkness.

“Dude,” Rufus backs up a few steps, giving Flynn plenty of space to pass him by, hands up in a gesture of surrender, like Flynn is a predator and Rufus is unsure whether or not he’s on the hunt. “What the _hell_ happened to you?”

Flynn ignores Rufus, coming to stand directly in front of Lucy. He stares at her, his expression carefully blank. His hand comes up to hover over hers where she clutches at her shoulder, not quite touching. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s fine, Flynn. What about you? You’re covered in blood.”

Flynn shakes his head. “Not mine.”

Lucy studies Flynn, meeting his eyes and holding them with her own, verifying for herself that Flynn isn’t holding anything back.

Behind Flynn’s blank mask, the storm rages behind his blue, blue eyes. He holds himself stiff, but underneath that control, he’s hiding the fine tremors in his limbs. Flynn is exhausted and overwhelmed and despite everything he’s put her through in the past, Lucy just wants to wrap him in a blanket with a mug of hot cocoa and orders to rest. To heal.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to take Flynn on this mission. Maybe she should give him some time before taking him out on another. But without a soldier, even one as broken as Flynn, how will she and Rufus protect themselves against Rittenhouse?

Lucy lets out a breath. She doesn’t have time for questions like that. Not when they still need to guide nine innocent women out of Salem.

As if in agreement, Flynn nods and turns to the rest of the group, taking point as they head deeper into the forest, keeping away from well known paths.

 

Daylight peers over the horizon as Lucy, Rufus, and Flynn arrive in the clearing where they left the Lifeboat. They trudge toward the time machine in silence, each too exhausted to speak, their focus solely on the placement of one foot in front of the other.

Rufus climbs into the Lifeboat first, as is his custom. Lucy goes next, but only after Flynn tilts his head for her to precede him. 

Once inside, she drops into her customary seat. She hasn’t had a problem with bucking the harness since they first started taking these trips back through time—since they were still chasing Flynn—but with her injured shoulder, Lucy fights to get herself settled.

Flynn sits as the door to the Lifeboat closes, his knees brushing hers. Subtly trembling fingers buckle his own harness, catching on the mechanism twice before it gives a loud _click_ as it slots into place. 

Flynn leans back into his seat with a sigh.

He looks worse than he did in prison after being _stabbed_.

Lucy winces and tears her eyes from him, working on her own harness one handed.

She doesn’t notice him lean forward until he’s in her space. He raises an eyebrow and Lucy allows herself to lean into her seat, defeated.

The corner of Flynn’s lips turns up and he takes both ends of her harness, buckling them together. He pulls at the straps to tighten them, with just enough slack to be comfortable.

As comfortable as time machine safety measures get, anyway.

“Thank you,” Lucy says.

“How is your shoulder?”

“Burns, actually.”

Flynn’s already grim expression falls. “You’ll need antibiotics. Stitches, probably. If no one—I can do it, if there’s no one else. It won’t be pretty, but I know a little about patching people up in the field and—”

Flynn stops, turning his face away.

It hits Lucy, all at once.

He blames himself for Lucy being injured.

Lucy flushes. “I’m fine, really. It’s just a scratch, I promise.”

“Just don’t ask me to take a look at it,” Rufus says, busy pressing buttons and flipping switches, “Like I _keep_ saying, my doctorates are in physics, computer science, and engineering. I _don’t_ work on people.”

Lucy smiles at Flynn. “Rufus had to dig a bullet out of Wyatt one time and he hasn’t stopped complaining about it.”

“Damn right,” Rufus says. “And don’t forget, Flynn is the reason Wyatt got shot, in the first place, so don’t—“

“I’m sorry, Rufus.”

Rufus closes his mouth with a snap. He turns to look at Flynn so quickly, Lucy winces for the muscles in his neck that will undoubtedly hurt later. He stares at Flynn, his eyes wide.

“Oh,” he says, finally. “Um. Thanks?”

Flynn nods.

“This doesn’t make up for the time you had me shot, you know.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Flynn says, closing his eyes. “Any chance of a more gentle landing on the return trip?”

Rufus narrows his eyes at Flynn, wheels turning as he reevaluates the other man. He turns back to the Lifeboat computers. “I’ll, uh, see what I can do. But, _only_ because I’m a sympathy puker.”

 

Flynn still looks green as the Lifeboat lands in the present, but he doesn’t rush to undo his harness. Instead, he breathes in and out through his nose until his stomach settles. Only then does he open his eyes.

They’re less stormy than before, dulled with exhaustion. Framed by heavy purple shadows, his pupils are almost grey. 

Since when does Lucy pay so much attention to Flynn’s eyes?

“Hey,” Lucy says. “You did good out there. Think you can make it just a little further?”

Something like surprise passes over Flynn’s expression, before it’s smothered. “Let me help.”

Lucy allows Flynn to unbuckle her harness after dealing with his own. He stands, having to duck in the smaller time machine, and offers her his arm.

The arm still covered by the sleeve of his duster. Not his bare hand.

Lucy takes it, pulling herself up.

He helps her to the door, where Rufus, who usually rushes to greet Jiya and get down to repairs, has stopped on the landing of the stairs. 

“Uh, guys,” he says. “Wyatt’s back.”

In spite of herself, Lucy’s heart does a little flip inside her chest. She looks passed Rufus to the group assembled below.

Wyatt stands there waiting. But he’s not alone.

A tall blonde woman stands close to his side, her eyes wide with disbelief. She turns to Wyatt, who gives his wife a goofy I-Told-You-So grin.

Jessica. Here. In the bunker.

“I guess we’re going to need to figure out new sleeping arrangements,” Rufus says, his practical mind already having accepted the dead woman standing before them.

Beside Lucy, Flynn frowns. 

Rufus climbs down the ladder to envelop Jiya in a tight hug, swinging her around in a little circle. “Missed you.”

“Missed you,” Jiya returns. “How was your trip?”

Rufus turns to look at Lucy and Flynn, who still have not descended the stairs. Lucy, who can’t seem to tear her eyes away from Wyatt and Jessica, and Flynn, who hangs back behind Lucy. “I’ll tell you later.”

A warm hand settles on Lucy’s back, jarring her out of her shock. She shoots Flynn a grateful look and nods in answer to his silent question.

He blinks in surprise and nods in return, helping her down the stairs. He steers her passed the group, keeping himself between her and the rest of the team, shielding her from the cause of her obvious heartache, towards the bathroom.

“Lucy,” Wyatt says, as they pass. “Wait, I—“

“Medkit,” Flynn calls over his head at Denise. “Antibiotics, too.”

“What happened?” Denise asks, springing into action, following behind Flynn and Lucy, her heels clicking with each hurried stride.

“After,” Flynn says. “Lucy, first.”

A little thrill of _something_ goes through Lucy. Has anyone _ever_ put her first? Flynn is close to collapse and, yet, here he is, tending to her, putting her injury before his own trauma.

“The medkit is in the storage cabinet in the bathroom. There should be some topical antibiotics in there. Do I need to call for a medic?” Denise asks.

Flynn looks at Lucy, the question clear in his eyes. ‘Do you trust me?’

“Flynn can do it,” Lucy says, still looking at Flynn, watching the subtle shift of relief that passes over his face as she says it.

“Is your shoulder still burning?” Flynn asks.

“Like it’s on fire, actually.”

“Topical antibiotics aren’t going to cut it,” Flynn says over his shoulder to Denise. “Can you get Lucy a prescription for oral antibiotics? Something strong. Who knows what kind of bacteria were on that knife.”

“I’ll make the call now. When you’re done, I want a full report.”

Denise follows them as far as the entrance to the bunker. The security door beeps as she inputs the code. She slips through the door, closing it behind her.

With her hand still tucked around Flynn’s arm, Lucy allows him to steer her the rest of the way to the bathroom.

“Now might be a good time to mention that I'm not really great when it comes to... _this_ ,” Lucy says, using her chin to point at her bandaged shoulder. “Blood and needles and _stuff_.”

“Don’t worry,” Flynn rumbles. “I’ll be gentle.”

Lucy snorts, but her smile falls when she realizes he isn’t teasing her, that he _actually_ means to treat her as gently as possible.

Lucy flushes and doesn’t look at Flynn again until he opens the door for her and ushers her through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for reading and to each and everyone of you who leaves kudos and comments! you are SERIOUSLY the BEST. <3


	13. Chapter 13

“Go!” Flynn shouts.

Rufus looks between them, Flynn, carrying a modern day assault rifle he’d pilfered from the corpse of a Rittenhouse goon, and Wyatt, carrying the unconscious body of the future president of the United States of America—John F. Kennedy—over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and makes an abortive movement toward the Lifeboat.

“Go,” Flynn shouts again. While he appreciates Rufus’s hesitation—is ridiculously grateful for it, in fact—they have only seconds until Rittenhouse is on them again.

Wyatt nods at Flynn, recognizing Flynn’s sacrifice for what it might be. “C’mon, Rufus. We gotta go. Four hours for the Lifeboat to recharge and then we’ll be back, alright? C’mon!”

Rufus grimaces at Flynn, clearly still hesitant to leave behind a team member. “Sorry, man.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Flynn says, pasting on a cheeky grin. “This is kind of my wheelhouse, remember?”

He turns his back on Rufus, trusting Wyatt to force the other man into the time machine if necessary, and checks the rifle over. Behind him, the door to the Lifeboat shuts with a heavy _clang_.

Three...two...one…

Four nameless Rittenhouse goons, headed by an equally nameless Rittenhouse sleeper agent, burst through the hastily furniture-fortified door, guns raised.

The _woosh_ of air as the Lifeboat pops out of existence hits them just as the last man runs through the door, forcing them to cover their eyes, either by turning away from the direct blast or throwing a protective arm over their faces.

With a burst of gunfire, the men are dead before they know what hit them.

In this case: Flynn, in the warehouse, with the assault rifle.

One sleeper agent down.

Two more to go.

 

Lucy’s feverish skin trembles under his touch.

Flynn glances at her in the mirror. Her chair sits so low to the ground, all he can see of her face over the lip of the sink is the bridge of her nose to the crown of her head. Her eyes meet his, though, glassy and over-bright with pain, fever, and fright.

“Are you sure?” Flynn asks. “It’s not too late to call in a medic.”

It is too late. Much too late. They should have had Lucy patched up hours ago, instead of leading the women accused of witchcraft out of Salem. But Lucy insisted and, Flynn, their only means of protection, could not leave her to fetch their med kit from the Lifeboat.

Not after what happened the last time he left her.

“No, it’s okay. I’m okay. I trust you.”

 _I trust you_. Each word lances through him, each cut deeper than the last.

Lucy shouldn’t trust him. Not after what happened in Salem—what he _allowed_ to happen in Salem, unable to stay the fuck out of his own fucked-up head.

Flynn shakes his head, but doesn’t voice his concerns. “Are you ready?”

Lucy nods, but her hands are curled around the arms of the chair, her knuckles white.

He pushes the needle into Lucy’s skin and she jumps, whimpering. She looks at him, horrified, but Flynn shushes her, pushing her gently back to sitting in the chair.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says. “I”m so sorry, I didn’t mean—” 

“I know. I know, Lucy. It’s okay.”

Tears spill down her cheeks. “I’m trying—” she breathes in“— to be brave. Like Wyatt and Rufus. Like you.”

Brave? How could she not know? “You’re the bravest of all of us, Lucy.”

“I’m not. I’m _not_.”

Flynn frowns. He pushes past his discomfort to cup Lucy’s cheek with his hand, shocking her into looking at him. He brushes tears away with the pad of his thumb. “Listen to me, Lucy Preston. From the beginning, _you_ stood against me. Not Wyatt. Not Rufus. _You_. Time and again. Even when I threatened to erase you from history, it was you who pulled me back, who showed me there was another way. And it was you who went against Agent Christopher to give me the names of the people who murdered my family, even if it didn’t go as you intended.”

Lucy opens her mouth to interrupt, but Flynn continues on. “It was you who survived— _for six months_ —when your mother held you prisoner. It was you who broke me out of prison. You who fought for me to be a part of this team when no one else trusted me. And it was _you_ who saved those women back in Salem. You’re the reason they lived long after they were supposed to be dead. You, Lucy, are braver than _anyone_ in this bunker.”

He holds her gaze until Lucy sniffles and nods. “Thank you.”

Flynn lets his hand fall from her face. “Are you ready to try again?”

Lucy takes a deep breath and lets it out before nodding.

 

Flynn sits on a park bench, the deep scowl carved across his face enough to deter anyone from approaching him. 

He folds his arms over his chest, pulling at the torn fabric of his stolen suit. He winces at the pain that shoots through the right side of his rib cage at the movement—bruised, most likely. Blood drips sluggishly down his left leg, soaking his sock and pooling in the heel of his shoes.

Fucking Rittenhouse.

Only two and a half more hours to wait before the Lifeboat is recharged. 

As long as Rittenhouse doesn’t jump again, as long as nothing has happened to the bunker and all of those left inside it, it should only be two and a half more hours before the Lifeboat returns to replace Kennedy and retrieve Flynn.

 _If_ they plan to retrieve Flynn, that is.

It would be so easy to leave him behind. To strand him here in an unfamiliar time, in an unfamiliar place. To claim he was killed by Rittenhouse and finally wash their hands of him.

Rufus might object, but without Lucy on the mission, Wyatt is clearly the man in charge. Rufus would go along with it, if Wyatt told him to. He would feel guilty, but the guilt wouldn’t outweigh the relief of finally getting rid of the man who had him shot.

Would Lucy mourn for him?

Or would she regret breaking him out of prison, for all the use he turned out to be on these missions?

Even now, the park stretches on in all directions, the rolling greenery broken up only by the sidewalk in front of him, by the trees dotting the meticulously manicured lawn. His stomach turns at the sight of the endless blue sky hanging above him, not one cloud to break up the infinite expanse.

An assassin afraid of wide, open spaces.

Pathetic.

At least he stopped hallucinating. 

It was painful, at first. Sitting in his closet-turned-bunker bedroom, he’d waited to see Lorena and Iris. He’d even tried conjuring them. He talked to them—low, in Croatian, lest any of his teammates thought to eavesdrop—for hours, sometimes. 

But no, not even when Lucy came to talk to him did either of his girls materialize. He thought, perhaps, Lorena might. That she would be sitting in the chair in the corner of his room, her arms folded over her chest, staring at him with accusing eyes. That she would berate him for the way his heart jumped into his throat at the sight of Lucy at his door or the way it hammered in his chest like a guilty schoolboy when she mentioned the items missing from around the bunker. The items he’d hidden around his room, a poor attempt to make himself feel safe.

Flynn sighs and kicks both feet out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. The grass where his injured foot previously rested is dark with blood. He should tend to it, but tending to it would mean stealing—either picking some unsuspecting stranger’s pocket for cash or going straight to the source and robbing a nearby pharmacy—and Flynn is much too exhausted to do either. 

As much as Flynn wants to close his eyes and rest, however, he forces them to stay open, to stare out into the park until the panic recedes.

 

Flynn helps Lucy to sit up long enough for Agent Christopher to coax Lucy to swallow a small handful of pills—antibiotics and fever reducers, respectively. Her skin burns beneath her clean pair of cotton pajamas and yet Lucy trembles under his hands. Her teeth chatter and her hands quake around the glass of water Agent Christopher lifts to her mouth.

“Okay,” Christopher says. “You can lay her down, now.”

With a hand on her back, Flynn lays Lucy against the pillows piled on the end of her bed. She smiles at him as he pulls her blanket up to her chin. “Th-thank you.”

“Rest now, Lucy,” he says. He tucks a lock of hair, damp with sweat, out of her face, only just resisting the urge to card his fingers through the rest of her hair.

“Sit w-with me?”

Flynn nods even as his knees creak in protest. 

“Flynn,” Christopher says, voice stern where with Lucy it was soft and motherly. “I haven’t forgotten about the debriefing you owe me.”

“Neither have I,” Flynn says, not moving.

Christopher sighs. “I’ll get what I can from Rufus. For now. I still expect a full report from you.”

“You’ll get one.”

Christopher stands at the end of Lucy’s bed for a long, awkward moment. She lets out another sigh and slips out of the room.

 

The knot in Flynn’s gut untangles at the familiar _whoosh_ of displaced air and the smell of ozone fills the warehouse as the Lifeboat pops into existence.

Wyatt is the first to climb out of the time machine, followed by the young John F. Kennedy, and then Rufus.

“Rittenhouse?” Wyatt asks.

“Neutralized,” Flynn says, eyes on Kennedy, who wobbles a little as he takes shaky steps away from the time machine.

Feeling Flynn’s eyes on him, Kennedy looks at Flynn, at first suspicious and then, seeing the state of Flynn’s clothing, concerned.

“Are you okay?” the future president asks.

“Never better,” Flynn says, swinging his injured leg in line with his good leg to stand at attention as he gives a cheeky salute.

Kennedy smiles, but there is weight behind it. The weight of too much knowledge. The weight of responsibility.

So, they told him. Or Kennedy found out. Somehow.

Wyatt puts his hand on Kennedy’s back, leading him toward the exit. “I’ll get Kennedy where he needs to be. You guys stay here.”

Rufus hesitates before side stepping closer to Flynn. “I’ve got some, um, cards. In the Lifeboat.”

Flynn raises a brow.

Rufus shrugs. “It passes the time.”

“You’re not afraid I’ll shoot you or something?”

Rufus’s expression turns stricken. “Well, _now_ I am.”

Flynn lets the corners of his mouth turn up. “Don’t worry, Rufus. If I wanted you dead, I’d wait until we got back to the present, not strand us all in the past.”

Rufus’s dark eyes narrow, studying Flynn. Then, all at once, he relaxes. “Man, you’ve got a weird sense of humor.”

That startles a laugh out of Flynn. “So I’ve been told.”

He gives a half turn, showing off the blood staining the dark fabric of his pants. “Tell you what. Let me take care of this and if Wyatt’s not back, we’ll play.”

Rufus’s eyes go wide. “That is a _lot_ of blood. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Rufus, I didn’t know you cared.”

Rolling his eyes, Rufus turns toward the Lifeboat. “I, like, barely tolerate you. Stay there. I’ll get the first aid kit.”

Flynn huffs a laugh.

He really does regret having Rufus shot.

 

The door creaks.

Flynn’s eyes fly open. He takes in his surroundings in an instant. Ingress, egress, protective cover, potential weapons, the number of bodies, friendlies, enemies.

Flynn lets his guard fall.

He’s in the bunker, sitting with his back against the metal wall of room shared by Lucy and Jiya beside Lucy’s bed. Lucy sleeps, her forehead beaded with sweat, but otherwise at peace.

In the doorway stands Jiya, two plates in her hands, eyes wide and her body frozen in place. She defrosts, but doesn’t move out of the doorway. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. You’re not in murder-mode or something, are you?”

Flynn shakes his head. “Not since yesterday.”

Jiya laughs, but it’s an uncomfortable laugh, like she’s not certain whether or not he’s joking, but thinks it might be best to laugh, just in case. She enters the room and sits cross-legged on her bed. Placing one plate on her lap, she leans forward to offer him the second one.

Flynn takes it, taking note of the sandwich, the handful of glistening baby carrots, and the dollop of peanut butter.

“It’s turkey,” Jiya says, anticipating his question. “I didn’t know what kind you like, but I figured turkey would be safe. The peanut butter is for the carrots.”

Flynn opens his mouth and closes it again. Finally, he settles on: “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Jiya crunches down on a carrot.

For a time, the room is silent. While Flynn picks at his sandwich, Jiya eats with the meticulous concentration of someone determined not to feel the awkwardness of the situation.

“I heard the gist of what happened from Rufus,” Jiya says, eventually breaking under the pressure to say something.

Flynn looks at her, but doesn’t urge her to continue.

“You kept them safe out there. Mostly. And, while it sucks Lucy got stabbed and now she’s sick, well, I—I appreciate the effort. If you weren’t there—” Jiya sighs. “They probably would have died and maybe I would have read about them in a history book somewhere or maybe I’d be stuck in a reality where Rittenhouse has already taken over the world.” Jiya shakes her head. “Anyway. The point is: you were really good at being the boogey-man, but now that you’re on our side, it’s easier to see that you’re not actually _The_ Boogey-man. And—thanks. I guess.” 

Again, Flynn finds himself at a loss for words.

“You don’t have to say anything. But, um, mind if I sit with you? Or, you could, I dunno, take a break? No offense, but you kind of look like shit.”

Flynn looks at Lucy, her breath slow and even.

“I’ll switch with you,” Jiya says, standing. “You take the bed and I’ll take the floor. You can conk out and I’ll keep watch. That way, if Lucy wakes up and asks for you, you’re not even three feet away. Sound good?”

Flynn can’t remember the last time he well and truly slept. Sometime before Rittenhouse murdered his wife and child, he’d be willing to bet. Even in prison, with nothing to do for entertainment, Flynn had just...existed. His prison sentence was just one endless blur of gray, punctuated by visions of Lorena and Iris.

“You’ll keep watch?” As soon as the question leaves his mouth, Flynn winces. He hadn’t meant to ask, hadn’t meant to encourage Jiya, but the words spilled out of him without his permission.

His exhaustion must be taking more of a toll on him than he realized.

“Promise,” Jiya says, holding out an outstretched pinky.

In spite of himself, Flynn softens. Iris used to turn everything into a pinky promise. Each time he indulged her, it was just to see the way her entire face crinkled when she smiled.

Flynn hooks his pinky around Jiya’s. She gives their entwined fingers one good shake before holding out the rest of her hand to help him off the floor.

Instead of taking it, Flynn hands her his mostly empty plate and pushes himself to standing, barely holding back a groan as each of his muscles protest sitting on the cold concrete. Gingerly, he sits on Jiya’s bed.

At Jiya’s encouraging smile, Flynn swings his legs onto the bed and lies back, hands folded over his stomach.

He closes his eyes.

And sleeps for the next eighteen hours.

 

As the Lifeboat settles into the present, Flynn swallows back the now-familiar nausea and unhooks his harness. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with air from the 21st century.

Rufus is first to climb out of the Lifeboat. Wyatt raises a challenging eyebrow, but Flynn makes an exaggerated gesture for him to go first. With his injured leg, it takes Flynn longer to climb down the ladder, but when he makes it to the bottom rung, he’s greeted by both Agent Christopher and Lucy.

Lucy, who is out of bed. Who looks both exhausted and heart-broken, her shoulders slumped under the oversized flannel shirt she wears over a thin tank top and baby blue sweatpants. She gives Flynn a weak smile. “You’re back.” 

“How was it?” Christopher asks, tearing his attention away from Lucy.

Flynn rolls his eyes and pushes past her. “You would _not_ believe the day I’ve had. I’m going to take a shower.”

“I want a full report, afterward,” Christopher calls after him.

Flynn raises a hand in acknowledgement, but doesn’t stop.

Really, he should be more grateful to her. She had every right to bench him after the last mission, and had Rufus not given his report first, she just might have. But Flynn still hasn’t forgiven her for sending him on the mission without a weapon. Never-mind that she was the one responsible for putting him in prison, in the first place. Or, that it was she who recommended he be placed in solitary confinement, given the violent nature of his crimes.

 

“Lucy, I said I’m sorry.”

The process of toweling his hair forgotten, Flynn slows his steps through the hallway, masking the padding of his bare feet on the concrete floor. He stops just as he reaches the corner and peers around—careful not to give away his position—to see Lucy and Wyatt. Arguing.

Lucy frowns at Wyatt, her eyes pleading. “What do you want from me, Wyatt? You got your wife back. You have a chance to be happy.”

“But, Lucy—”

“No, Wyatt. Just no, okay? We had _one_ night together. That’s not a relationship. And it’s not something that’s worth ruining your marriage with Jess over. Just go back to her. Prove to her you aren’t the man you were in this timeline.”

Flynn steps back as Lucy retreats, hurrying in Flynn’s direction. He makes a show of vigorously scrubbing at his hair with the towel, of having been in mid-stride, when Lucy rounds the corner and only just stops short of colliding with his chest.

“Sorry,” Lucy murmurs, her eyes wet. “I’m still not feeling well. I’m going to go lie down.”

Hands hidden in his towel, Flynn clenches them to keep from reaching out. “Want anything?”

Lucy gives him a watery smile. “Just some quiet. Thanks.”

She pushes past him, head bowed, shoulders hunched. Flynn watches her until she reaches the door to her room and disappears inside.

 

Later, dressed in a hoodie and a pair of flannel pajama pants—his usual protection against the damnable cold of the bunker at night—Flynn enters the kitchen. The edges of each glowing number on the ancient microwave’s clock almost bleed together, but they’re still legible. 03:34.

Aside from the dim emergency lights, the only light in the common area at this time comes from the muted television. Shadows play along the kitchen wall as figures move across the screen, the light catching on the lone figure sitting slouched on the worn sofa.

Flynn opens the fridge and takes out two bottles of beer. He twists the tops off of both bottles and tosses them into the trash.

Careful not to startle Lucy, Flynn sits on the farthest end of the sofa from her. Staring at the television, Flynn offers her one of the bottles.

For a long moment, Lucy doesn’t move. Then, with a sigh, she reaches over to take it, her fingers brushing his. She tilts the bottle towards him and Flynn clinks the neck of his bottle against hers. Cheers.

They each nurse their beers in absolute silence. Flynn kicks out his legs and crosses his arms, the ache in his bruised ribs a dull throb. He tries to puzzle out the plot of the black and white film playing on the television, determined to be nothing more than a comforting presence at Lucy’s side.

If she wants to talk, she’ll talk when she’s ready.

Lucy finishes her drink before Flynn, setting the empty bottle on the coffee table. Minutes later, Flynn’s bottle joins hers on the table. 

Flynn toys with the idea of getting up to get them a second round when Lucy slumps against his shoulder.

Eyes wide, Flynn looks down to see Lucy has fallen asleep. Her eyelashes flutter against her pale skin, but Lucy doesn’t wake. If anything, she burrows closer, cheek nuzzling into the fabric of his hoodie against his arm.

Flynn’s heart beats hard in his chest. For a second, he’s afraid the thrumming of it against his aching rib cage will be enough to wake her, but no. Lucy breathes out a soft sigh through parted lips.

The realization hits him all at once.

It should have been obvious. Maybe not from the start, but very soon after.

He loves her.

Flynn breathes out a shaky breath of his own, but the knowledge doesn’t sit heavy on his shoulders. Instead, he feels lighter for it. Like a long-held secret finally revealed.

He hesitates, hand hanging in the air, before he finds the courage to push a lock of hair out of her sleeping face.

Lucy murmurs in her sleep, the words muffled against his hoodie.

“Sleep well, Lucy,” Flynn whispers.

It’s only when the glowing numbers on the ancient microwave’s clock bleed into 06:30, when the first signs of stirring in the bunker become audible, that Flynn slips out from beneath Lucy’s sleeping form and slinks through the darkness of the bunker, back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiii! so, i'm back. a lot of things happened between now and the last time i updated this fic. including a wicked case of "omg i hate this chapter so muuuuch." but! it was totally worth it because i'm pretty happy with how this chapter eventually turned out. and--holy wow--it's a whopping 12 pages! that's, like, double the length of my usual chapters!
> 
> annnyway, i hate to say it, but it might take a bit for the next chapter to come out. i'm a guest writer on a podcast and the first draft of my story is due in early november. i'm hoping to turn it in a bit early, because the sooner i get that done, the sooner i'll be back to this fic!
> 
> okay! like lucy, i'm gonna go pass out. unlike lucy, i don't have flynn's stupid, beautiful biceps to fall asleep against. 
> 
> as always, i love each and every one of your comments and kudos. i hope you enjoyed this chapter!


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